Interesting historical periods to reimagine ... IN SPACE!

It's no secret that lots of space opera are just historical periods ... in space! There's the Napoleonic Era, the WW 1 era, the medieval era and so on, so I was wondering what eras might be the most interesting to extrapolate into outer space.

- Ancient Greek city-states period - Ancient Biblical Israel - High Middle Ages - the Early Modern era - WW 2 period - Cold War - pre-colonial Indian states - Imperial China

Instructions unclear. Tried to ride my horse in space, died. Fought alien with bronze spear, died. Tried to fly airplane in space, fell, died.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 5th 2020 at 8:23:55 AM

On the other hand I was able to secure a building in a space colony as bronze spears and shields didn't legally count as weapons.

Edited by Belisaurius on Sep 5th 2020 at 10:32:06 AM

Well I do use a bit of inspiration/influence from Ancient/Imperial China for one of the factions in one of my works.

The Age of Exploration is the obvious one, and the humans don't have to be the only one's exploring.

Gundam manga writers recently decided to reimagine the Sengoku Era in space.

Fan reactions are... divided.

So... the novel "Shogun", in space?

You can't go wrong with Space Holy Roman Empire

I really like the idea of an HRE In Space. The HRE gave it's vassal states lots of autonomy and took very little offensive action but attacks from outsiders would lead to massive retaliation.

I assume we're full-on Space Opera here, right? No serious attempts to be scientifically plausible? If so, you can have almost any social and political dynamics you like. Firefly did the Space Western thing brilliantly. (sniff)

Yep, full on space opera, with the ships turned to spaceships and lands turned to planets!

I remember Orson Scott Card mentioning once about how medieval English romances could be easily turned into darned good SF novels.

So Romeo and Juliet IN SPACE!? Hasn't that already been done one or more times. Like I swear that's the plot to a couple of anime.

EDIT: Now I remember that Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team basically is Romeo and Juliet In 'Nam! I believe Crest Of The Stars had a bit of influence from it as well.

Edited by MajorTom on Sep 6th 2020 at 7:24:07 AM

Also, I'm pretty sure World War II has been done numerous times in space settings before. Not straight, but metaphorical, as they tend to have The Republic or The Federation fight against The Empire.

I think he meant modern romance novels set in Medieval England. There's a mountain of them.

Edited by DeMarquis on Sep 6th 2020 at 12:45:15 PM

Oh no, I'm talking about medieval epics of adventures into strange lands and suchlike. Like maybe Beowulf

You could plausibly make a supersoldier to do the crazy shite Beowulf gets up to.

Maybe Greek or Roman history?

With Greece, there were the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.

Maybe some guy successfully unites the galaxy under his rule, declares himself emperor, but died soon after. His generals divide up the galaxy amongst themselves and fight each other to reunify it.

With Roman, you could retell the Punic Wars.

Speaking of Athens, you could have a Delian League where one planet ends up dominating the others by virtue of a larger navy.

I meant Orson Scott Card. Pretty sure that's what he meant.

Full Disclosure Statement: practically my first attempt at fiction was a series of stories meant to riff King Arthur and the Round Table in space. It was loosely based on a Traveler RPG I had been playing in.

Edited by DeMarquis on Sep 7th 2020 at 9:27:21 AM

I wonder how Imperial China in space would work

The Harlem Renaissance in space?

The Jazz Age.

That actually might work.

We could plausibly see a return of an aristocracy based on who owns the space ships and shipyards. It's kinda hard to resist your oppressors when they can orbitally bombard you. On the flip side, creating warships requires highly educated labor and lots of it. You could see even more democratic ideals as each individual is contributing a lot of wealth.

So yeah, you could totally see an imperial dynasty in space.

As for space jazz? I'm a Cowboy Bebop fan. I am entirely too biased to say anything but yes.

For me it would be post Ayuttayan period of Thailand where there are so many warring states before king Taksin the great unite them again

That would indeed be unique if set in space.