World Building - open to all.

[TheWorldBuilder]

Apparently my previous open thread for world building ideas was removed, because the one word title was the name of a world which was famous for world building in a popular Science Fantasy series.

Hopefully this title is both descriptive and innocuous enough to avoid moderation.

Ideas for both SRPs and ORPs are welcome here - as are general scenarios, discussions, outlines and questions - provided they involve either alternative/future/past conditions on Earth or viable extra-solar planets for story locations.

Please do not cut/paste entire stories or first chapters into here; although plot/location/character outlines are welcome.

 

[Baddie4Life]

What are you trying to achieve?

 

[TheWorldBuilder]

Last time I was regularly here there was a little community of 12 - 15 authors exchanging ideas for plots, locations and characters. Unfortunately, I can already see that at least four of them are no longer active (and the original thread was removed because of its title) but I'd like to recreate that welcoming space for discussion.

For example, on another site I've been writing a scenario with modified seasons (though not as extreme as Helliconia).

 

[Galfox5]

I’ve been known to catch a case of worldbuilder’s disease on the regular. So are you just looking for people to toss out ideas until something catches enough people’s fancy that a RP post spawns from it?

If that’s the case, I’ve had an idea rattling around my head for “Biblically accurate cyberpunk” for a bit. A world where angels and demons are real, god and the devil killed each other in a failed attempt to bring about the prophesied apocalypse, resulting in angels and demons getting cast out into the earth as the resulting cataclysm destroyed both heaven and hell, and clever as we are, humans figured out how to bind their spiritual energy to special arcane hardware that traps the essence of the being and puts it to work as one would a cyberpunk augment. Oh yeah, and ghosts are everywhere because with the destruction of both possible afterlife destinations, souls have nowhere to go after the body passes.

I dunno, might not be what anyone’s interested in, but someone had to toss out the first idea.

 

[TheWorldBuilder]

Any evolution required in there? It sounds a great idea to put out there but it sounds as if the location would be Earth as we know it with very little change to the ecosystems. Pop it into the general sticky post for announcements.

 

[Galfox5]

Any evolution required in there? It sounds a great idea to put out there but it sounds as if the location would be Earth as we know it with very little change to the ecosystems. Pop it into the general sticky post for announcements.

Ahh, you were thinking more of a speculative biology variety of worldbuilding, gotcha. Probably not much of that with what I floated out, as yeah, you’re basically talking Earth except with the Judeo-Christian mythology confirmed as mostly true vs a matter of faith for its believers.

In that case, I’m a sucker for a good tidally locked planet.

 

[TheWorldBuilder]

Tidally locked in the ecoshell (habitable zone) implies a red dwarf. They are less stable and produce frequent flares. Conversely, because of the short rotation/orbital period the temperature remains relatively stable.

 

[Galfox5]

I’m figuring fairly high monodirectional (light side -> dark side) winds and a relatively thick atmosphere. The alternative is you get the classic “eyeball world” effect, with a scorched desert on one side and a frozen wasteland on the other separated by a narrow band of habitable twilight land.

 

[TheWorldBuilder]

Sorry I've not been dropping in to exchange ideas recently, too much RL stuff and myxomatosis amongst the plot bunnies. The only thing I'm getting recurrently is a 'Passengers' type dream.

 

[TheWorldBuilder]

OK... If you have seen 'Passengers' you'll know the basic theme; but rather than the moral question of 'to wake or not to wake?' which some interpreted as sexist, in this scenario all the pod failures are due to the mainframe problems (and everyone wakes healthy, even Gus). Now the question becomes 'to pair or not to pair?'

Pairings can be short-term quickies or longer slow-burns. Please respect writers who seem to have a character bonding going. Obviously this will work best if genders and preferences are approximately in equilibrium, so (knowing the mix of SRP authors) any ladies who are prepared to multi-character would be especially welcome.

Anyone who wants to join a parallel narrative about fixing the ship should give themselves engineering skills; my Navigator character will have ship knowledge and crew-level access to systems but no ability to fix them.