Let's build a label-less setting

I do like the idea of an empire trying and failing to control everything. Maybe at one time people in a large part of the world may have thought they could do it but the plates shifted too much and the resources which allowed them to thrive are now broken scattered and in the territories of others. So now they are a shadow of their former glory desperately trying to grab more land then they can mange just to get back to their resources.

And you made it brilliant!

lol Thanks.

A while back I had an idea that sort of combined magic and superhero powers and technology.

The idea was basically that every now and then a people would be born with a very specific power. Most of the powers involve the ability to create different types of portals. Examples of portal types would be: ones that can transport humans, ones that can transport inanimate objects, ones that can transport visual images, and ones that can transport sound.

You can probably all ready think of some of the implications - easy travel and trade. But this would also allow for things like simple portal-based televisions, radios, and telephones.

edited 30th Aug '12 8:47:46 PM by AlexisPius

That could be very interesting, it would also be cool if you had people who can make portals of varying strength in addition to type.

Like Bob can only cast his portals on stone but Alice can cast her portals on to anything but it must be within her line of sight.

Ah, that's smart.

The very original idea was combination of two things: a power and what element you had control over. For instance, sight portal + wood = you can only make them on wooden structures. There were also more traditional powers like telekinesis + animals = you can control animals, etc. But yeah, I like the idea of just having a general limitation on the power better.

As for the rest of the setting, it's a little hard for me to picture the current idea that's been proposed in my head. So here's how I'd personally sort of tweak it:

A large sun-like object is in the center of this universe. It regularly dims and brightens, giving something similar to a day-night cycle. This sun is surrounded by a thick spheroid-shaped cloud of what looks like fragments of planetary crust - they're mostly flat and support life, but are small - they almost look like a planet's surface was torn apart and scattered like a jigsaw puzzle. Each fragment has a unique orbit - they can be slow, fast, irregular, etc. The fragments never collide with one another, but they can come close enough to facilitate travel. And each fragment can have it's own biome, maybe unusual alien ones. I hope all that makes sense.

I like it!

I also like it but I hope there can be like layers of floating plates some above each other some below all constantly floating.

Also I feel there should also be a regular sun in the universe too but one that only the top plates see.

Like have their be several dozen floating equivalents to the surface area of the earth in size but broken up.

edited 30th Aug '12 10:25:08 PM by Vyctorian

Right, so you mean that the top-most layer would be in perpetual daylight, the bottom-most layer would be in perpetual twilight / darkness, and the layers in between get almost random amounts of light and darkness from the shade - almost light clouds were constantly moving overhead.

I like it. Plus this open an entirely new reason for wars. Sunlight. Even though the plates shift the layers closest to the surface would be coveted.

If the pieces are to be small, then a disk configuration makes more sense to me than a spherical configuration. In the latter, you'd need an intelligence of some sort controlling everything like a clockwork, otherwise you'd constantly get major collisions as the orbits at different inclinations (with respect to some arbitrary equator) intersect each other. In the former, a simple thing like gravity could keep everything more or less stable, just as it does in e.g. Saturn's rings. It doesn't have to be actual gravity, of course, any kind of force or invisible tether emanating from the central region and affecting the pieces would do fine. Everything else works the same, either way.

That's if we require everything in the setting to make logical sense. I personally like it being a bit softer after all it looks like we're going to have born magic powers which allow portals.

"[M]agic powers which allow portals" may be fantastical, but they're not in the least illogical. And I'm not saying that having an intelligence of some sort (magic, clockwork punk, deity) control the spheroid orbits isn't an option, of course. It's just something that would have to be addressed in order not to inordinately strain suspension of disbelief, IMO. Considering that the payoff, compared to a disk, doesn't seem very high, that seems more trouble than it's worth, to me.

I don't care one way or the other, but one possibility for the lack of collisions and bizarre sense of order everywhere might be that it's not explicitly explained in-world. So the inhabitants come up with their own reasons.

Some of them believe that God / the gods / a mysterious cosmic force keeps everything in order. And others might have scientific theories to explain it. For instance, they may theorize that deep inside these rocky fragments, there is a sort of antimatter that causes certain things to be drawn towards it (like gravity), but repels other objects that contain this antimatter (like other fragments, preventing full-on collisions).

It could just all work out of chance, like Chaos theory.

What about a world that is a 3-sphere? Picture this: Two balls of space, now define them such that identical points on their spherical boundaries/surfaces are one and the same. I.E., 0 degrees N and 0 degrees E on Sphere A is the same point as 0 degrees N and 0 degrees E on Sphere B. The boundary of Ball A is the same as the boundary of Ball B. The North Pole of A is the same point as the North Pole of B. And et cetera.

Now imagine it such that you are inside Ball A, traveling towards the spherical boundary. As you "exit" ball A, you "enter" ball B through the equivalent point. E.g. you exit ball A through the point on sphere A that is 5 degrees N, 14 degrees W. As you cross the boundary exiting ball A, you cross the boundary entering ball B, and vice versa. That is a three-sphere.

note: In math, distinction is made between the 2-sphere and the ball. The 2-sphere is the boundary/surface, while the ball is the interior space.

edited 31st Aug '12 11:52:57 PM by ArgentumUranium

I'm going to need a visual aid because that all went right over my head.l

Okay, slight simplification. Suppose you have two globes and it is possible to move around in the interior of these globes. We have a bug in globe A that is flitting around inside.

Now suppose the bug decides to leave globe A by bursting out of the surface through Washington D.C.. The moment the bug leaves globe A, it enters globe B through the Washington D.C. on globe B (Washington D.C. on globe A is exactly the same point as Washington D.C. on globe B.).

Now suppose the bug is dissatisfied with globe B and decides to leave via Los Angeles. The moment it leaves, it winds up inside globe A having come in through the L.A. in globe A (again, L.A. on globe B is the same as L.A. on globe A).

The kicker is that the bug does not see a boundary between the two globes: they are "glued" together by having their separate spherical beoundaries being defined as one and the same entity.

Simply put, take two balls of space, and define them to be related in such a way that their two spherical surfaces are one and the same, and that is a 3-sphere. You can read more about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-sphere

I think this post might be an effort in futility, but I might as well try.

I'm voting for the floating continents, Globe world is nonsensical, Concentric world is an interesting idea, but rather hard to pull off.

the 3sphere is kinda like an Alternate World Map ,only with more than one.

maybe the world is a normal size, but beings are all just really small, or big, size can really change how things work, as one would be closer or further from the size of the molecules that make up an object,fluid,gas,or plasma

anyways, how thick would the layers be, what if space depris crashed into the surface, how might that effect lower layers, are their any caves that run through to the other side of a layer? might any plants rise up through a layer or hang down from another layer?

maybe a moon could effect the movement of the different layers.

I have always liked the idea of an insanely high(or deep) environment, such as a city that has built on top of its self for so long and has thousands(exaduration, maybe just hundreds) of layers, where at some point no sun ever shines. or a forrest similar to the sea of corruption from nausicaa of the wind where the plants are highly reproductive and can just keep growing on top each other. hidden depths with beings and stories forgotten to time intrigue me.

a huge unexplained somewhat flat rectangle floating in space with world on both sides and an absolute cut off of gravity at the edges so water and such just float off at the sides

tiki-punk?

i spend every day think'n of this kind of stuff

(more rambling...)

edited 21st Oct '12 1:32:17 AM by zoraxbrooks