Secrets to creating a unique universe

[tlrobson1]

I'm interested to know what rules or techniques you guys employ as a means to ensure that your particular vision of the future stands out from the rest. The Star Treks/Star Wars'/Mass Effects/Halos of the world are often interesting visually and from a character perspective, but I find the universes themselves to be a little dull. Multiple species of humanoid alien? Standardised FTL? All-encompassing interstellar empires or governments? It's all a little samey to the point of becoming cliché.

For me, I've always found that good stories are bred from conflict, and often conflicts arise when you want to do something that you can't do. Universes like the previously aforementioned don't seem to have many (if any) limitations at the core of the universe's physics, especially when it comes to travel. One of the techniques that I employ at the start of universe creation is to create something, note its limitations in practice, and then keep it anyway knowing that it could alter the plot in various interesting ways further down the line

How do you guys avoid the clichés?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

It helps being completely nuts.

Mine is designed for my fantasy stories as issues come up with the stories I create an aspect of the world to fit. It was inspired by a children's Fisher Price ball (the older one with a perspex top, green bottom and rocking swan). Also by the idea I had as a child that we were inside god's belly and a bit of He-Man (1980s Cartoon)- the planet is the heart of the universe and is responsible for pumping energy or life blood round the universe. So events that happen on the planet can cause god to have an indigestion, heart attack etc

Then I needed my character to do something so I turned him into a bird he became a falcon and his enemy after watching a documentary became a Great Skua. Wanting a time travel story the idea of using Earth nursery rhymes appealed so the secret to it is in Hickory Dickory Dock and Alice in Wonderland.

Mine are set in the future because my "Noah" style character left Earth 2012 but it has technology contemporary to our own. The world has its own creation, fall, flood stories etc

The races are mostly humanoid although some have interbred with insects and birds. Most of the races are based off the elements they represent some have similarities to elves and ogres (well sort of I based the personality for that race off the characters in Little Women).

Somehow the story manages to plug the umm issues it could all have.

 

[Harpo]

For a unique universe, start from scratch - the Big Bang has been done, being sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure has been done, etc etc. Maybe a universe where the early atoms are tiny sentient beings who procreate to create more and more of themselves, become less intelligent with every millionfold growth, or whatever you like.

Then you can invent your own variation of string theory, galactic tide, stars & planets & comets (or other), radiation types, elements on which to base lifeforms (eg mercury or uranium or helium based instead of carbon or silicon based) and so froth. Build up a universe from these very basic things, and see where it takes you.

Conflict doesn't have to be between two opposing things (good/evil, or religion/science, or politics/candyfloss) it could be between three (scissors/paper/stone) or however many you come up with.

Creating a universe should be fun.

 

[chrispenycate]

I'm quite happy to add one or two frills to a clichéed situation. Some of the greatest SFF stories ever have avoided the task of completely reëducating a readership by adding one or two revolutionary ideas to a relatively conventional cosmos (I was thinking of Ringworld to start with, but realised that the Known Space universe was only conventional because Niven had been layering extra sophistication into it novel by short story.)

Because if you've got to explain all the physics of your opus, there's no room left for the characters. A Hal Clement could get away with this, in his time; nowadays readers are supposedly impatient with the world building, never mind the science get on with the story! (Supposedly. I was informed that North Americans could not read anything that contained more than two words of more than two syllables per sentence, or sentences of more than ten words. Actually the transatlantic inhabitants seem quite capable of following my polysyllabic, multiclause style, and some even claim to enjoy it, at least as much so as the inhabitants of the British Isles, demonstrating that publishers make unsubstantiated assumptions about their clients).

As has occasionally been noted I do tend to grab an idea and go into it in some depth; if I were creating an entire universe in this detail this would lead to a datadump of dinosaur killer dimensions, a Peter Hamilton multi-volume physics, engineering and sociology tome but with less characterisation. I suspect the short story of being the epitome of SF writing with the septology doorstop a momentary aberration.

 

[Abernovo]

Conflict can also be internal. The conflict between desire and duty, for instance.

I'm always much more interested in the people (be they humans, aliens, or whatever), and how they interact. Even a single person, marooned in space, could provide a commentary on the 'human' condition. Nanotechnology? Interesting, but it's how it's used by people, and what happens after that, which makes it so.

It's the characters who make the universe interesting and unique.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm afraid I, too, fall into the interest in characters camp.

The thing is, non SFF books are set in one world - a cliched one, if you like - where we have a single planet with diverse countrys and different governances. Yet there is no shortage of books and stories written, many of them unique.

I really admire all the world builders out there, who come up with something original, but at the end of the day, the story within that world will mostly be about someone's story or conflict.

The world I have created is a cliched sci fi world, in the sense outlined in the OP, but that's okay. It gives my reader a comfort zone, a sense of knowledge about what to expect within it, which allows me to tell the characters' story, and let that be the focus.

I was half day dreaming about this today while driving. Someone on the Chrons (I think it might have been Harebrain) pointed out to me that I had to sell my world on the central character right from the start, because he was the focus of the story. And when I changed the start around a little to reflect that, it became more engaging.

So, if the world is your focus, that's what you need to sell it on. Or the intrigue, if it's a mystery etc. etc.

I don't mind a cliched world (within reason), but I do like to be interested in what happens in it.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I want to add I agree about the characters- mine began with a dead king with three children. Eventually his youngest became the POV character of the first story and it developed from there. My world would be nothing without them because there would be nobody to interact with the environment.

 

[tlrobson1]

Thanks for the replies folks, there's definitely a lot of interesting food for thought there. My main concern however is that I maaay have been misinterpreted with the amount of replies advocating a 'character vs. universe' scenario, and feeling that they have to fall on one side of a debate that I never intended to start haha. I am a strong believer that characters are the singular most important part of any story regardless of genre, so most if not all of us seem to be on the same page here. I don't think they are mutually exclusive concepts. Both the characters and the universe that they live in are important to me.

One of the biggest challenges for me when it comes to writing is successfully describing my fictional technologies/ideas/philosophies within the context of the story and the characters. Anybody can infodump a chunk of background knowledge into the narrative, but it takes subtlety and skill to work these things into the plot in a way that makes sense.

 

[SciFrac]

tlrobson1, I dare anyone to create a new world. There are hundreds of thousands of books published every year. We're all intruding into each other's territory. You really can't avoid that, but still, I think it's a worthy pursuit. The first step is to know what's out there. READ as much as you can. See what is overdone or popular, and find areas that are rarely used, or use them in new ways or construct a different economy based on the tech and emphasize a new problem. I agree with Abernovo, technology only become interesting once people use it. That's where plot forms.
Also, know your market. That's my best advice.

 

[Abernovo]

I don't think it's characters v. universe. More it's a case of the universe shown through the characters perceptions.

You could have a Niven Ring (Halo), with FTL ships flitting about to the far reaches of the galaxy, but it could still be unique if the characters were engaging and kept the story afloat. They explain the oh-so-familiar tropes away, so that you pay attention to the story.

That said, I don't have FTL, or Niven Rings. I have characters crawling around space at distinctly sub-light speeds, so the action (or lack of) is confined to a small locus. The science and the discussion comes from that.

 

[allmywires]

I don't write fantasy set in the middle ages

But seriously, it's about knowing the difference between what inspires you and what you want to say. I'm a sponge when it comes to writing: every book/tv show/film I enjoy leaks into my writing afterwards, sometimes quite noticeably. It's terrible. People have written Tolkien-esque swords and sorcery fantasy because it's what was the done thing. I like being different. (even if it is hard to reconcile in my writing). Though that doesn't mean mediaeval fantasy is wrong, it's just putting your own spin on it that counts. As always, it's what you do as a writer that makes it work. If you're good enough to make it stand out from the crowd, then it can be done.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I like writing first-person because the world never needs to get deeper than the character's understanding and experience of it. It forces me to introduce it as the characters interact with it.

 

[tlrobson1]

I write in the 3rd person, though purely from a single character's perspective and yes, I'm with you on that 100% Anya. I think it helps you empathise more with the character in question if you only know as much as they do. In films/TV/books/whatever I often find myself being unfairly annoyed at characters who make terrible and idiotic decisions. I then have to kick myself when I realise that though I know why said decisions were stupid, they are not necessarily privy to that information haha.

 

[Glitch]

One of the biggest challenges for me when it comes to writing is successfully describing my fictional technologies/ideas/philosophies within the context of the story and the characters. Anybody can infodump a chunk of background knowledge into the narrative, but it takes subtlety and skill to work these things into the plot in a way that makes sense.

My first aim with technology is to describe how the characters use it. Assuming the character is familiar with the tech in question I simply have them pick it up and use it. My hope is that by setting the scene and characters intentions properly, and then the effects of the whatever the tech did; I have created the right image with the reader.

For example - In a current setting science fiction world I have a character involved in a car accident. They become concerned that the car's 'Fast Response' system didn't work and thus try to locate a mobile phone. I know this is very simplified; but have you already pictured what the 'Fast Response' system is and its intended purpose ?

 

[Gumboot]

I'm interested to know what rules or techniques you guys employ as a means to ensure that your particular vision of the future stands out from the rest. The Star Treks/Star Wars'/Mass Effects/Halos of the world are often interesting visually and from a character perspective, but I find the universes themselves to be a little dull. Multiple species of humanoid alien? Standardised FTL? All-encompassing interstellar empires or governments? It's all a little samey to the point of becoming cliché.

I think it's important to appreciate the reason for these "cliches" to see if they really are, or if they're inevitable features of a realised future.

To begin with, faster-than-light travel is pretty much a requirement of any future science fiction world that wants to involve anything beyond our own solar system. And while we have a few different theories on how it can be achieved, the reality is within a given universe the laws of physics would dictate that there's only one way it can be performed (our different theories on how to achieve it are based on different answers to our gaps in physics) and it stands to reason all FTL-capable civilisations would be utilising the same basic methodology. Even if you could conceivably argue for multiple different solutions (doubtful), the reality is once one civilisation found one way of doing it, everyone else would very rapidly adopt to the same method.

(We see the same process in earth history all the time)

Likewise, there's a logical reason behind the humanoid aliens. For one, basic evolutionary biology encourages animals to gravitate towards those organisms with which they share similarities, so humans would feel more comfortable interacting with other humanoid like creatures in preference to more bizarre creatures. Secondly, species of alien that are humanoid are more useful to associate with as we can share technology, tools, materials and so on.

Finally, there's the goldilocks theory of life-supporting planets which strongly suggests that any planet capable of supporting life would have very similar attributes to earth. We know from our own evolution that the humanoid arrangement (which is unique in the animal kingdom) is the only one enabling evolution to a "higher lifeform" level (crucial characteristics being our social behaviour, upright stance, and opposable thumbs). It's highly probable that any aliens evolving to the point of space travel on an alien planet would be quite similar to us.

 

[nubins]

The idea for the setup for my wip was kind of a weird progression. I had lots of ideas about what a future galaxy could be like and what kind of things might happen.. well lots of ideas that have individually almost certainly all been explored before.

I ended up kinda liking the science experiment thing.. where we are just some bizarre and extreme science experiment for far more ancient and advanced beings. Then I expanded that so that the entire galaxy is a laboratory and humans are the "control" set back and isolated in an area of space that cant be traversed by normal means of long distance space travel. Developing in isolation, the rest of the species in the galaxy, all based on primate DNA, have all been developing together. My story takes place at the point where the control experiment finally finds a way into the rest.

I then decided simply not to explain any of that or bring in, in any way or at any point, the original super advanced race. They are gone and noone knows where or even knows for sure they ever existed.

For the style of the technology.. well.. I always loved the Age of Sail. Swashbuckling captains, brutal battles, skullduggery, pollitical and financial conflicts.. so the ships are all aligned around how things were in the 19th and 18th century (only in space) - ships of the line vs frigates, merchantmen, corvettes etc. They are referred to by their payload (she's a 104 gunner! 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th rate battleships and the like). Even to the point where I worked out how to make the battles visually similar too (instead of huge quantities of smoke belching out of the guns when firing, I have them ejecting coolant gel on recoil and ships fitted with guns decks to contain their heaviest guns).

 

[psychotick]

Hi Gumboot,

I disagree. Even if the alien world was in fact Earth, the likelihood that another sapient species had matured here instead of us would not dictate that they would resemble us in any particular way. All it takes are relatively minor changes in DNA and the world and ecosystem, and vastly different species evolve and do better and worse. I mean we have everything from bacteria, to tube worms, to fish and birds and terrestrial animals. And when we look at what exists with sufficient brain power that it could one day develop true intelligence, we've got as well as the other hominids, dolphins, whales, and of all things, octopi.

The only way in which you could expect an alien sapient species to be like us, is in their intelligence. Other than that it's fairly much a lottery. I mean just consider if the world were slightly wetter, that dry land was a rarity, then the successful species would be more likely to be either amphibian, reptilian or icthian. And why would any of them have two legs and two arms etc? An elephant's nose or an insects mandibles could be just as easily adapted by evolution to make better use of tools etc.

And both avian and aquatic species would have some serious advantages over us in terms of the mental conceptions of the world. I.e. true three D, since they move in three D, while our conception is better described as two D with a third one tacked on.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[tlrobson1]

That premise really stands out to me Nubins. The most compelling aspect to me is actually the fact that you've decided to completely bypass the obvious origin story regarding how this experiment was set up. It casts a really dark and mysterious shadow over the entire concept, and those kinds of ideas really strike a chord with me.

That's really interesting Greg, because the only the other day I read a scientific article about how several species of animals had been classified as 'self aware'. Amongst them were octopi, elephants, and various different birds (some type of grey parrot being the only example that springs to mind). Imagine a world where octopi had evolved to be the dominant species? They're INCREDIBLY versatile species who's physical capabilities are far more impressive than the opposable thumb haha.

 

[Gumboot]

Hi Gumboot,

I disagree. Even if the alien world was in fact Earth, the likelihood that another sapient species had matured here instead of us would not dictate that they would resemble us in any particular way. All it takes are relatively minor changes in DNA and the world and ecosystem, and vastly different species evolve and do better and worse. I mean we have everything from bacteria, to tube worms, to fish and birds and terrestrial animals. And when we look at what exists with sufficient brain power that it could one day develop true intelligence, we've got as well as the other hominids, dolphins, whales, and of all things, octopi.

And yet even though all those animals are equally as genetically evolved as us, none of them is even remotely close to "higher intelligence".

Simply put, while some animals display remarkable cognitive abilities (some of them achieving levels of intelligence comparable to young human children in limited areas), they lack the alignment of characteristics necessary to advance beyond this to the higher level of operation seen in humans.

The only way in which you could expect an alien sapient species to be like us, is in their intelligence. Other than that it's fairly much a lottery.

You have it backwards. Our intelligence came last of all our physiological characteristics, and is a direct result of those characteristics, thus any animal achieving the same sort of intelligence is most likely going to also develop similar physiological characteristics first.

I mean just consider if the world were slightly wetter, that dry land was a rarity, then the successful species would be more likely to be either amphibian, reptilian or icthian.

I refer you again to the goldilocks concept. The amount of water in the planet, and where it is located, is a fundamental requirement for the evolution of higher forms of life. Indeed, you don't have to go very far outside the earth model at all before a planet ceases to be life-supporting.

And why would any of them have two legs and two arms etc?

The quadrupedal structure is by far and away the most efficient for larger land-based animals. Less than four and you're sacrificing speed and stability, more than four and the extra limbs become a significant drain on resources at no significant extra benefit.

An elephant's nose or an insects mandibles could be just as easily adapted by evolution to make better use of tools etc.

Not really. Evolution doesn't work in a piecemeal way, taking features from random different animals and combining them together. If we take insect mandibles, to illustrate my point, these evolved from legs, but larger numbers of legs are only of benefit to very tiny animals, thus larger animals don't evolve mandibles. Smaller animals lack the size to evolve higher intelligence.

You've got to remember that for any physiological feature to evolve, it has to, at the bare minimum, not disadvantage the animal prior to the point where it evolves to becoming a significant advantage.

An elephant's trunk, as example, evolved as a direct result of them being herbivores, yet being predators was an essential part, again, of us developing advanced intelligence (the reason being you don't need to "out smart" a tree to survive).

And both avian and aquatic species would have some serious advantages over us in terms of the mental conceptions of the world. I.e. true three D, since they move in three D, while our conception is better described as two D with a third one tacked on.

No. Just... no.

 

[Gumboot]

That's really interesting Greg, because the only the other day I read a scientific article about how several species of animals had been classified as 'self aware'. Amongst them were octopi, elephants, and various different birds (some type of grey parrot being the only example that springs to mind). Imagine a world where octopi had evolved to be the dominant species? They're INCREDIBLY versatile species who's physical capabilities are far more impressive than the opposable thumb haha.

Can you find this article? Given the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness was only in July this year (which essentially made the determination than a neocortex was not necessary for achieving affected states), I am highly skeptical that anyone has "declared" any animals "self aware". Certainly, research into animal consciousness indicates that great apes, dolphins, magpies, rhesus monkeys, and elephants have some level of consciousness, but even these are only at a very, very basic level and some of the findings are disputed anyway.

Octopi, on the other hand, have a nervous system that would seem to preclude them from consciousness as their limbs are semi autonomous.