On Creating Imaginary Worlds: Fantasy

[chrispenycate]

There is no reason why anarchy should lack logic. It lacks command structure, certainly (that's what it means) and has no laws (or at least no way of enforcing them, which, with humans, comes to the same thing) but this does not oblige a sort of wild west survival if the fastest, most vicious and most selfish. And even in the marshal-free wooly west there were many communities that co-operated, seeing that as their optimal survival strategy.

A stable anarchy probably couldn't survive a high population density, and I think there would have to be parental authority for at least the earlier years of a child's life (yes, spoils the aesthetic purity of the concept, but I can't see any way round it) but it could be totally logical, everyone chipping in for enlightened self interest…

Try Eric Frank Russell's "Gands", from "The great Explosion". Anarchists, with no greater punishment tan social shunning, but in no way antisocial… Yeah, real humans probably would never be that selfless (except in emergencies), but you asked how to write them.

 

[hopewrites]

i have spent most of today reading things about nuclear physics i dont understand trying to find a plausible time line for my post-apocalyptic world. while my research has not been fruitless and has given me the science to back up decisions i had already made about my fantasy. i still dont have a general time line for the per-start to my world.
the reason this is important is that the narrator will be collecting myths and legends about his world and i need to know how much time i have to distort the reality i am creating, as well as what that reality was.

my question then is; what time frame is most plausible for earth to have recovered to a mostly tropical state from an activation of MAD nuclear war where all major metropoliss (metropoli?) were reduced to rubble?

ie i destroyed the world we now know so that little remains of it but myth and legend. i have in place a fictional safety net to preserve two sets of humanity (and the safety net) so there will be three perspectives to tell my myths and legends from. but i would like to know about how long it would take earth to "recover" from what i did to it so i know how many generations have told these stories; so that i know how well believed they are likely to be.

thank you in advance for your advice.

 

[chrispenycate]

It rather depends on how enthusiastic the conflict was. A no holds barred, plutonium powder in the jet streams and ocean currents, radioactive cobalt pulverised over most of the land surface, doomsday weapons and suborbital delivery, you could be expecting two to two and a half thousand years before the planet had a breathable (by mammals) atmosphere again, assuming enough species survived to build a workable ecology. A bit excessive, that, so we'll probably leave that one out.

A more limited Armageddon (interesting concept there) might have regions where the surface was inhabitable after a century or so, even if the best places to put cities were still glowing a thousand years later. But that would almost guarantee that some town libraries, some village communities less dependent on big civilisation, would have managed to keep a continuity of information, just by random statistical chance, so I think that is out for your plot.

So, I think you need all land-living vertebrates eliminated, and at least 85% of vegetation. Humans survive in shelters (some), a few burrowing creatures, some deep sea animals. Plants die massively, but any that survive have few or no predators and lots of compost; population explosions, speciation, adapting to new niches; the standard effect of an extinction effect. Fast breeding, fast dying, and massive mutation; it'll be quicker than after the dinosaur killer. Burrowing creatures and insects will do the same as soon as the plants have generated enough new oxygen, and bacteria will go on as they always have, mutating faster than they can be killed.

I'd give it 800 to 1000 years before humans start developing larger groups, and exploring. Most high tech will have decayed by then, along with all the knowledge in books (not that the books couldn't have lasted that long, but the stimulus to save them was inadequate. A life expectancy of maybe 25, 30 years before cancer or inbred recessive diseases kill them. Hunter/gatherers (I don't know how they survived the shelter centuries, but I'll bet it's fallen into ruin; and underground is not convenient for maintaining skills like agriculture or blacksmithery. Good for conversation skills, though). Probably cave dwellers (stay below as much as possible, minimise the exposure), possibly cannibals.

It took our ancestors u hundred thousand years to grow out of this, so, depending on how far you want their society developed, you can choose how many generations yo want. Minimum 150, maximum lots.

 

[hopewrites]

Thank you, that was helpful information. I am undecided if the people who save most of Humanity will take their books as well. I am thinking not because they wont understand the significance of what they would be saving. Its done on a whim at first and discovery of a particular human trait keeps them from repenting the decision. So that group of humans is spared the depravity of having to survive the aftermath that would reshape Earth, the Wild Humans would of course have to suffer through and because of their disseparate lives create an interesting racial-diversity twist for me to exploit.
The occasional surviving library is not a bad idea, though it would be a bit like me finding a long forgotten library preserved from a dead language. As far as I have thought about it languages would be preserved in two ways only. The survivors would be reduced beyond reading and writing to day to day survival and only an oral tradition would survive, tribal and region dependent. The rest of humanity would retain reading and writing skills, but only in the language of the saving race.

 

[Primitius]

What sort of calendar might arise from a civilization developing under a sky with six massive, distinctive moons? I have envisioned a system where the passing of time is perhaps marked by certain reoccurring moon-alignments, but I am having some trouble figuring out how this might work, particularly in the way a system like that would correspond to other elements like the seasons, or if it even needs to.

Anyone care to throw some interesting ideas at me, as I feel my lack of knowledge on the intricacies of calendars (despite some cursory research) is holding me back.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Re: Six moon world.

How much of a fantasy are you making your world? i.e. do you really care if your moon/planet system is really possible - or are you not bothered -and just interested in constructing a type of calender with a cool sky!

If its the former, then you'll have to think carefully about how to construct your system - if these moons are indeed massive and for example add up to mass of the planet then I'd imagine it be an extremely chaotic system (in fact it should really all reduce to 1 or 2 bodies, either through ejection or collision, very quickly.) Think of Saturn - it has an extremely complex moon and ring system, but the main body is extremely massive compared to all the other bits and kinda regulates it all as a mini-solar system - these tiny moons have neglible impact on the planet of this size.

If the 6 moons are close in mass to the parent they will have a big impact on the seasons and tilt of the planet - but I'd make an educated guess that a 'big 6' system with a small parent planet is likely to have the planet spinning all over the place chaotically - which is kinda bad for vegetation, hence all other life. Although you could have a world of very fast growth hardy vegetation when the conditions are right and migratory animals I suppose...(although that'll also depend on land and sea masses - land animals could be unlucky and trapped in deep winter if you don't have enough land...)

It's easy enough to estimate, if you have relative masses and orbital time periods, where the moons should sit orbiting the planet- but you'd have to put all the moons really far out and distant from each other to make it plausible (But then they are easier 'prey' to gravitational tugs from other objects - so why are they even orbiting the planet in the first place!), my feeling is that you'd be describing an unstable random system. And by definition such a system can't have a calender!

On the other hand if your approach is the latter, then ignore all my crap above and I'd build heirarchies of months based on the orbital periods, perhaps paying attention when they line up (but there will be loads of cominbinations of 2,3,4,5 and 6 moon alignments - I can't figure quite out the maths, but we must be talking about close to a thousand), which again looking from the viewpoint of realism, will also have a big influence on mixing up loads of high and low tides randomly, giving rise to an interesting coastline (which btw can also depend on whether they are going against or with the stars gravity.) Throw in the fact that such a busy system will have plenty of solar and lunar eclipses for the locals to wonder at and measure too. Oh and lunar eclipses caused by the moons on each other. I think that's enough for the moment!

 

[Gumboot]

What sort of calendar might arise from a civilization developing under a sky with six massive, distinctive moons? I have envisioned a system where the passing of time is perhaps marked by certain reoccurring moon-alignments, but I am having some trouble figuring out how this might work, particularly in the way a system like that would correspond to other elements like the seasons, or if it even needs to.

Anyone care to throw some interesting ideas at me, as I feel my lack of knowledge on the intricacies of calendars (despite some cursory research) is holding me back.

Putting aside any scientific issues with having six "massive" moons orbiting a planet, it would really come down to how the moons moved, and how the seasons played out. Calendars originally were created to mark celestial movements, so you need to work out your celestial movements first, then move on from there. Any orbiting object is going to go through the same cycle as our moon, as it rotates around the planet, so you've got your "month" to begin with (however long their orbit takes), which in this case is six distinct "months" which might overlap, or anything else. Generally if you have multiple moons they're going to be in different orbits which means the closer ones moving faster, and the further away ones moving slower, with them all sometimes lining up.

Presuming your planet has an axial tilt, it's also going to have seasons as it orbits its star, so between your six-series of "months" and your single procession of "seasons" that really gives you your calendar year, as a building block.

 

[DthenB]

On a fantasy world with six moons, the calendar would be even more socially and culturally relevant and prevalent than it for us. Think of how many interactions fantasy concepts have with just one moon.

With six moons, some would have longer and erratic orbits, meaning that each individual night would have a different collection of lunar bodies at different points in the sky. The combination of moons could indicate fluctuations in mystical energies, or affect supernatural creatures in different ways. Every combination and position of the moons could symbolize something to this culture. Astronomers would be highly advanced in their studies and revered by the populace. Fortune tellers could predict the future by the movements of the moons, and a child's destiny could be foretold by the formations of moons it was born under.

Some nights would have all six moons in the sky, and night would be bright as day for weeks on end, a wonderful time to be a farmer. Other rare times there could be no moons, leaving the night pitch black and the domain of assassins and dark magicians.

The moons could affect werewolves' transformations, increasing the strength of the beast when more moons are full. Or each moon could correspond to a different were-creature, meaning up to six full moons. Some moons could be closer and rotate the Earth faster, meaning more instances of a full moon per month.

Perhaps the lunar months would just be based off the cycles of the largest or the most reliable moon. Regardless of how it is set up, the symbolism and direct effect of six moons would greatly increase the importance of calendars and astronomers in the culture that lives beneath them.

 

[Stephen4444]

I have been working on this scenario:

In a war between two star systems, one uses the others star as a weapon to destroy the opponent’s planet.
I think you can cause a large solar flare that engulfs the planet. In addition this would blow the planet’s atmosphere away?

My question is:

1) Do you think after the event the planet would regenerate an atmosphere (say in a thousand years or so?)

2) Do you think that a planet (like earth) would turn into a desert planet?

3) Do you think life could survive that (roaches, spiders, scorpions, small creatures)

4) Could the radiation cause mutation?


In my world intelligent scorpions survive (Mutated) and feed on others that survive... but could anything survive that?(Atmosphere blown away)

 

[chrispenycate]

Total loss of atmosphere? I doubt very much whether anything multicellular could make the transition; you're looking at starting again from bacteria. Many millions of years. Regenerating an atmosphere from outgassing, recuperating a lot of the old atmosphere that is still within the gravitational influence of the planet (some will be blown away by solar wind and light pressure, but a lot will just be blown into space, maintaining the orbital balance it had when the planet was holding it; gas obeys Newton's laws, too. So you'll get a torus of atmosphere, hydrosphere {largely in ice crystals} and general junk, mostly small stuff – dust, birds, aeroplanes – that can be carried by the escaping air, round the sun, gradually being swept up by the planet. I won't add up to anything like the original, but it'll only take a century or so.

Mutations? Massive. It's not a few cm of rock that are going to shield the eggs from a particle storm like that (one which is strong enough to strip the atmosphere off. You could easily go a little less enthusiastic and still wipe out all your vertebrates, but where's the fun in that?) Suggestion; your survival points are going to be at the polar winter point, where no direct sunlight arrives, and in the depths of the ocean; sure, you're boiling off surface layers, but the vaporisation itself cools things and currents tend to go sideways; it'll take time for the thermal shock wave to reach the abyss. And we hope the flare doesn't continue that long. Any arthropod in the polar regions is trained in hibernation, and is an R strategist, adapted for recolonisation, and their eggs, along with the plant seeds and bacterial spores essential for establishing an ecology, are used to surviving long periods before clement conditions set in (scorpions aren't; better to base your species on something like mosquitoes or midges)

Your deep sea species are going to need that mutation; suddenly they are in a much energy-richer environment, with almost no competition for resources. Perfect for diversification and speciation. Shrimps, crabs; all right, no poison stinger, but quite ready to help clean up the corpses of all these larger beasts that have been eating them all these millions of years. More worrying are the algae; they will have been in the upper layers of the ocean, the ones boiled off and quite largely in space. If any are left they'll colonise like wildfire, but they've got no reason to be in the lightless depths, and most of them concentrate on vegetative reproduction, not sexual which might produce spores with a better survival hope.

Now, if they were 'opponents', it holds that the original inhabitants of this planet had space travel, no? Would they not have set up self-sufficient bases on moons, or free-space habitats, with entire stable (if limited) ecologies (hydroponics, algae tanks with fish in them, sewage recycling)? and, seeing the devastation left by the attacks, wouldn't you try and parachute small samples of life back, even if it was clear you'd never see the results?

I'm interested in how you intend to generate that solar flare. I did it with an unbalanced Bussard interstellar ramjet (much smaller flare), Clarke and Baxter by dropping a gas giant planet into it; the amount of energy needed to upset a star is stupendous.

 

[Abernovo]

I think you can cause a large solar flare that engulfs the planet. In addition this would blow the planet’s atmosphere away?

Hi, Stephen. Should that be 'would this'? I'm not being pedantic (okay, I am, but for a good reason), but if so, it asks another question. The answer to which is I'm not sure, but it could give a different result, it might strip away some of, or at least cause serious fluctuations in, the magnetic field for a temporary period. Perhaps even a prolonged period.

1) Do you think after the event the planet would regenerate an atmosphere (say in a thousand years or so?)

2) Do you think that a planet (like earth) would turn into a desert planet?

3) Do you think life could survive that (roaches, spiders, scorpions, small creatures)

4) Could the radiation cause mutation?


In my world intelligent scorpions survive (Mutated) and feed on others that survive... but could anything survive that?(Atmosphere blown away)

1. No. After the atmosphere is blown away, what's it going to be replaced with? No biological organisms would be left, the sea would be gone and the volcanic emissions wouldn't be enough to create an atmosphere for aeons.

That is why my question about the wording. Damage to the magnetosphere might be repairable, as it depends upon the movements of the solid and liquid metals within the Earth, but it could take a long time (I don't know for sure) and if so, give potential mutation possibilities you're seeking for your story.

2. Mars, but possibly not as pleasant, without an atmosphere. With lower magnetic protection and increased radiation, desertification in some areas would be possible, even probable.
3. No atmosphere, you'd be lucky to have much above a few single cell organisms, and they'd have to be extremophilic. Still an atmosphere, but weakened magnetosphere, roaches and tardigrades would survive. Quite a bit might survive depending upon how much shelter and food/water resource they could find, but the smaller creatures might have an advantage.
4. IF there was life remaining, radiation would cause mutation, but it's a tricky one. Radiation mutation is not generally like you see in comics and Hollywood. Mutations are, biologically speaking, nature's way of experimenting to find the best survivors - most mutations die very quickly.

Not trying to put a downer on your idea though. I really like the idea of a manufactured solar flare (well, as a theory, wouldn't want to experience it ). A good bit of damage to the magnetosphere and even a burning of part of the atmosphere might make a very interesting story. I'd just suggest that you don't go for total atmospheric annihilation. Good luck with this.

 

[Stephen4444]

There is a lot to think about. Looking at the post, it would be impossible if "all" the atmosphere were "blown away."

Total loss of atmosphere? I doubt very much whether anything multicellular could make the transition; you're looking at starting again from bacteria. Many millions of years. Regenerating an atmosphere from outgassing, recuperating a lot of the old atmosphere that is still within the gravitational influence of the planet (some will be blown away by solar wind and light pressure, but a lot will just be blown into space, maintaining the orbital balance it had when the planet was holding it; gas obeys Newton's laws, too. So you'll get a torus of atmosphere, hydrosphere {largely in ice crystals} and general junk, mostly small stuff – dust, birds, aeroplanes – that can be carried by the escaping air, round the sun, gradually being swept up by the planet. I won't add up to anything like the original, but it'll only take a century or so.

It is important to the plot that a bioengineered predatory arthropod (scorpions or Arachnida) survive. I don’t think that is possible in this scenario. I may have to rethink the atmosphere blowing away completely.

Mutations? Massive. It's not a few cm of rock that are going to shield the eggs from a particle storm like that (one which is strong enough to strip the atmosphere off. You could easily go a little less enthusiastic and still wipe out all your vertebrates, but where's the fun in that?) Suggestion; your survival points are going to be at the polar winter point, where no direct sunlight arrives, and in the depths of the ocean; sure, you're boiling off surface layers, but the vaporisation itself cools things and currents tend to go sideways; it'll take time for the thermal shock wave to reach the abyss. And we hope the flare doesn't continue that long. Any arthropod in the polar regions is trained in hibernation, and is an R strategist, adapted for recolonisation, and their eggs, along with the plant seeds and bacterial spores essential for establishing an ecology, are used to surviving long periods before clement conditions set in (scorpions aren't; better to base your species on something like mosquitoes or midges)

“Hmmm.” Mosquitos sound most interesting. I was looking toward a venomous creature.

Your deep sea species are going to need that mutation; suddenly they are in a much energy-richer environment, with almost no competition for resources. Perfect for diversification and speciation. Shrimps, crabs; all right, no poison stinger, but quite ready to help clean up the corpses of all these larger beasts that have been eating them all these millions of years. More worrying are the algae; they will have been in the upper layers of the ocean, the ones boiled off and quite largely in space. If any are left they'll colonise like wildfire, but they've got no reason to be in the lightless depths, and most of them concentrate on vegetative reproduction, not sexual which might produce spores with a better survival hope.

Very good point!!!! I did not stop to think about the oceans. I assumed they would vaporize.

Now, if they were 'opponents', it holds that the original inhabitants of this planet had space travel, no? Would they not have set up self-sufficient bases on moons, or free-space habitats, with entire stable (if limited) ecologies (hydroponics, algae tanks with fish in them, sewage recycling)? and, seeing the devastation left by the attacks, wouldn't you try and parachute small samples of life back, even if it was clear you'd never see the results?

Most of the inhabitants off planet were caught and enslaved. A handful survives and has integrated into the other planets society (as freedom fighters.) The enslaved are treated as gladiators for sport or worked as slave labor on asteroid mines.

I'm interested in how you intend to generate that solar flare. I did it with an unbalanced Bussard interstellar ramjet (much smaller flare), Clarke and Baxter by dropping a gas giant planet into it; the amount of energy needed to upset a star is stupendous.

By using heavy water or plain water I propose you can cause a flare. The same concept as using vaporized fuel on a fire. Through Fission the star is creating mass into energy. If you put a massive amount of water onto a star you would not put it out. You would only add mass (more fuel) you could make the star larger (with enough mass). This is not what I propose.

I propose in the story that a vapor cloud be sent toward the sun. The vapor would be in an elongated cloud with the outer ring pointed toward the plant. When the edge of the cloud gets close enough to the sun, this would start the Fission reaction directed toward that planet.
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[Stephen4444]

Thank you for the help. Everyone in this post is great! I'm surprised at how intelligent and well thought out your responses are. “Kudos!”

Hi, Stephen. Should that be 'would this'? I'm not being pedantic (okay, I am, but for a good reason), but if so, it asks another question. The answer to which is I'm not sure, but it could give a different result, it might strip away some of, or at least cause serious fluctuations in, the magnetic field for a temporary period. Perhaps even a prolonged period.

I think the magnetic poles changing or being upset would be a good alternative but I think bipedal intelligent life could survive that. It is important that the original “intelligence” cannot step foot on the planet for a thousand years or so.

 

[chrispenycate]

By using heavy water or plain water I propose you can cause a flare. The same concept as using vaporised fuel on a fire. Through Fission the star is creating mass into energy. If you put a massive amount of water onto a star you would not put it out. You would only add mass (more fuel) you could make the star larger (with enough mass). This is not what I propose.

I propose in the story that a vapour cloud be sent toward the sun. The vapour would be in an elongated cloud with the outer ring pointed toward the plant. When the edge of the cloud gets close enough to the sun, this would start the Fission reaction directed toward that planet.

Going to have to get a bit more energetic than that. Fusion (not fission) reactions take place deep within the star, where the pressure is high enough to keep nuclei close enough despite the temperature, not in the relatively cool photosphere. That's all right; you don't need to generate any more energy for a flare, just disrupt the outer layers enough to reveal the hot bits.

Just as well, since if you wanted to add water the obvious trick is to crash a comet into it. Several megatons conveniently packaged – what? worried about the couple of hundred degrees Celsius between ice and steam? The cool bit of the sun it's going to hit first is about five thousand degrees, massively too cold for fusion (which will need at least ten million degrees) but having no problems with vaporising ice. Trouble is, comets do hit the sun, fairly often, and are just swallowed with hardly a belch; no correspondence with flares, or even sunspots. A planet is so small relative to a star it'd only make a worthwhile dent if it were at relativistic speeds (as in Clarke/Baxter's "Sunstorm) If you could make a lithium hydride asteroid (not going to be easy, as lithium is relatively rare in the universe, not being on the main-chain fusion reactions) you might be able to dive it into a star fast enough to make a measurable increase in fusion; but it would be deep enough that the energy would take centuries to reach the surface. Catalysis? Not unthinkable, though the obvious substance is carbon (if the fusion chains I learnt in my youth are still valid, and this is an element so common how much of it would you need; and then, how long before the energy escaped?

* * *​

If the flare goes on long enough the oceans will boil, yes. But not instantaneously; it'll take lots of applied energy. A short flare (less than one planetary revolution, or local day), could leave some atmosphere (actually, it's almost statistically certain that some atmosphere will remain, maybe as dens as Mars'), some surviving organisms (probably quite simple ones) and hopefully some fertile seeds.

If you're bioengineering your scorpions you can go for higher reproductive rates with no problems; it's only natural beasts that I was talking about. Keep them small, though; the EMP of that flare is going to burn out nerves of anything more than a few centimetres long.

 

[Stephen4444]

On a NASA website, I observed a picture of a solar storm. The caption was worded along these lines,

“… the storms follow the lines of the Suns magnetosphere.”

I think I can create my flare with a kind of magnetic disruption… or creation of a magnetic field that links the plant to the star. Does that sound possible?

That would take a lot of power but it would only take a short magnetic burst.

 

[chrispenycate]

That's how I did it, yes. The magnetic funnel of an interstellar Bussard ram jet travelling at near light speed interacting with a star's magnetosphere. Depends on high temperature, near infinite current capable superconductors, and some improbably strong materials, but gets its energy out of its own velocity and the star's magnetic field. Introduces turbulence in the upper, cooler layers, allowing for a plume of deep, hot plasma to escape. Don't bother about aiming it; it'll move with the star's rotation anyway, panning across the system.

It would probably be fairly easy to detect coming in, but it's not that easy to see what to do about it, apart from build another one and send it back against your enemies (arriving decades after the extinction of life in your system, so they might have time to prepare for it – I don't know, cannon balls, robots with wire clippers?)

 

[Stephen4444]

I think I will run with your suggestion.

Thanks!!!

 

[Colbey Frost]

I ge caught up with creating new worlds, but find that you need to have this depth if you're going to get anywhere with it. I have been told many times to just keep writing about the same world, but I love creating new ones so much that I can get bored of them.

How to create fresh things in a world you've already created without it feeling like an expansion pack?

 

[Stephen4444]

I also love to create worlds... so much so... I create instead of writing.

I ge caught up with creating new worlds, but find that you need to have this depth if you're going to get anywhere with it. I have been told many times to just keep writing about the same world, but I love creating new ones so much that I can get bored of them.

How to create fresh things in a world you've already created without it feeling like an expansion pack?

I'm a fledgling writer so my "well of experience is shallow." Sometimes I start writing a character driven story then make the place reflect where they would live. Then I apply the rules of the world I created. Most times I use an outline and that don't work. (at least for me)

 

[Grinnel]

How to create fresh things in a world you've already created without it feeling like an expansion pack?

I assume we are back on the topic of Fantasy, as all the Sci-Fi guys were supposed to leave this topic alone!

First of all, you can write as many stories as you want on the same world until one gets published. The public can't get bored of something they haven't read yet.

You can write from several fresh perspectives on the same world. You may have written in great detail about your barbarian from the frozen wastes coming to civilized lands, but much remains undiscovered in the tropical jungles. Have you travelled past the Pirate Isles and accross the Forbidden Sea yet? Things might be completely different there.

Time changes everything. Magic (and science) and its understanding changes over time. Climate can change, sometimes quickly and dramatically, over fairly short periods of time. This can be greatly augmented by magical, technological or natural catastraphies.

Science and magic can wax and wane. Even great magics can be forgotten or fall out of practice (look at our own dark ages).

Mercedies Lackey has several great trilogies written around the land of Valdemar. Most of these trilogies happen in the same place but centuries apart, and the world (and in many cases magic) is very different in each series. Some of what she writes involves the ripple effect of what was done centuries before. Read the following trilogies (not necessarily in this order) The last Heald Mage, The heralds of Valdemar, Mage Winds, Mage Storms, The Mage Wars and Owl's Flight. These will give you some ideas on how to keep things fresh and changing without completely re-inventing your world from scratch every time.

I hope this helps.