Worldbuilding: share your tips and tricks!

[StillStunned]

And of course, in TNG there is the episode where they found Scotty who had stored himself in the pattern buffer of a ruined ship for a century ... as if NO ONE HAD THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD DO THIS BEFORE IN OVER A CENTURY OF THE TECHNOLOGY, yet NO ONE EVER THOUGHT TO CLONE????? Yea, right.

I've seen very few episodes of any Star Trek, but this one I do remember. As I recall, there was a second person in the holding pattern who didn't survive, wasn't there? If so, the risk would explain why the technique would only be used in emergencies.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I haven't read much Sanderson,

I wholeheartedly recommend Stormlight Archive. His other work doesn't come close to it, in my opinion, so if you read something else by him, it might be misguiding in a sense.

I remember enjoying the first three Robin Hobb books, even if they felt a bit contrived. Then they became a bit weepy and melodramatic for my tastes.

My impression as well. I loved the emotional depth up until it became too much. The world needed much work.

Scott Lynch I think gets the balance right. The POV is a group of self-centred conmen. The details you get are the details of the world that impact them. Yes, I'd love to know more about the Eldren (is that what they're called?), but the stories work fine without that information. It remains as much a mystery to the reader as it does to the characters.

I don't know... I really like the series but it still feels that he could have done more to create something different than a copy of Venice in almost every sense. Also, after three books, magic is just as vague and abstract as it was at the start. Interesting characters, great humor, intriguing plot, but bad worldbuilding, IMO.

 

[StillStunned]

Yes, you need it to be logical to the reader. Also, it depends on the length of the story. You have much more freedom to create crazy stuff in a one-shot scene story. In a novel, the systems have to stand up all the way through and at every twist and turn.

It's a sword & sorcery story, which means that magic is obscure and usually dangerous. One of the characters in that setting is a scholar who dabbles in small magics, but it's all scrolls and a few one-shot items. That's part of what makes S&S what it is: magic remains mysterious and unpredictable.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Transporters already exist; they are called 3D printers. But you must have the suitable material for the copy to be right. You can't make an editable chocolate bunny out of resin. You can't make a new living individual from a pattern and metal molecules. Even if you use carbon monocules, it won't produce a functioning human being complete from inert material. Where does the spark of life come from? Where do the microbes in our body come from out of just the pattern? Your example lacks the building blocks when the original material isn't available. YOu might be able to create an artificial life-form copy of the original. But even that would need more than just a person's pattern. I didn't even buy copies of Kirk and Riker; it was just a stupid concept to create full forms from half the material and expect either form to survive.

But it is not adequately explained how they cannot create life when they already do everything that they do. They move life, they store life, they copy life. If Scotty was simply a pattern in the buffer, then was he alive in the buffer? If so, the transporter stores life. If he was dead for 75 years in the buffer, then the transporter re-creates life. Either way, life can be saved and cloned by the transporter technology. Absolutely, case closed. If Geordie tells me that the transporter can't clone (and I don't think he - or anyone else - ever did), it does not take a rocket science to NOT believe him after seeing all that the technology does.

Why? Because the world was built recklessly for convenience, not thought through well enough, and that convenience destroyed all plausibility.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I've seen very few episodes of any Star Trek, but this one I do remember. As I recall, there was a second person in the holding pattern who didn't survive, wasn't there? If so, the risk would explain why the technique would only be used in emergencies.

And they have emergencies all the time and don't use it. Also, if that risk is that great, then simple transporter functions would be dangerously lethal like car accidents, yet transporter accidents almost never happen on the show, so such risk is already established to not be significant. And even if it was, you can always save copies and have multiple backups. Remember, you are simply pattern DATA in the transporter, not actual matter.

 

[StillStunned]

Below is the intro to a story I've been writing off and on for the better part of a year. It's set in a fantasy version of Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Obviously I can't use either name, which would be anachronisms, and I don't want to get too hung up on historical detail. It's not important either, at least not for the story.

So instead I've gone the "mood" route to give the idea of widespread and unending war:

===

For more than two decades the war had been raging across the Continent. A dozen nations and a score of duchies, principalities and other smaller states sent their armies into battle. Cities were besieged. Some stood, some fell. Whatever the outcome, the price was high.

What they were fighting for was hard to say. Faith, many claimed. The right of princes to tell their people what to believe, and how to believe it. Love thy neighbour by force of arms.

Yet Faith took a step back when more immediate concerns strode to the fore. Power. Pride. Possession.

Power, pride, possession – they stalked the burned lands like tribes of demons, and the people cowered in the dark.

===

(Wow, it looks much longer in Word.)

 

[MillieDynamite]

You need the original material for that to work. You creating people out of air your way.

And they have emergencies all the time and don't use it. Also, if that risk is that great, then simple transporter functions would be dangerously lethal like car accidents, yet transporter accidents almost never happen on the show, so such risk is already established to not be significant. And even if it was, you can always save copies and have multiple backups. Remember, you are simply pattern DATA in the transporter, not actual matter.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's a sword & sorcery story, which means that magic is obscure and usually dangerous. One of the characters in that setting is a scholar who dabbles in small magics, but it's all scrolls and a few one-shot items. That's part of what makes S&S what it is: magic remains mysterious and unpredictable.

There is nothing wrong with that approach but you should still at least hint at the scope of power of such magical items, and limit them in some way. Deus ex Machina moments, or "Batman utility belt" as I usually call such moments, can truly ruin a story.
"There they were, cornered, at the brink of doom, enemy goblins and drakes far outnumbering them and getting closer by the second... and then Hiborious took out his secret weapon, the Scroll of WTF-PWN-THEM-ALL, and saved the day!"

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Transporters already exist; they are called 3D printers. But you must have the suitable material for the copy to be right. You can't make an editable chocolate bunny out of resin. You can't make a new living individual from a pattern and metal molecules. Even if you use carbon monocules, it won't produce a functioning human being complete from inert material. Where does the spark of life come from? Where do the microbes in our body come from out of just the pattern? Your example lacks the building blocks when the original material isn't available. YOu might be able to create an artificial life-form copy of the original. But even that would need more than just a person's pattern. I didn't even buy copies of Kirk and Riker; it was just a stupid concept to create full forms from half the material and expect either form to survive.

Yes, and in Star Trek they DO have the correct molecules. They use them every day, every hour, every minute in the replicators. Matter and molecules are abundant everywhere in the universe and one carbon atom is indistinguishable from another. One can build one water molecule the same as another out of any two hydrogens and one oxygen. You can't tell me that after all the magic tech that they do on that show that they cannot collect and manipulate simple chemicals. And we already know that they can assemble molecules into incredibly intricate patterns such as a unique human body, clothes and all.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You need the original material for that to work. You creating people out of air your way.

No you don't. The food replicators make copies. It's the exact same tech.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Second, why is anyone on the Enterprise the least fearful of death? They can do Evil Kneivel stunts all day and if they fuck themselves up, they get Scotty to reassemble a copy of their last saved body. Every day, wake up, have breakfast and save a copy of yourself down in engineering. Never die.

Or, depending on philosophical interpretations, die every time you use the transporter, to be replaced by a clone who has your memories but isn't you. Brrrr.

It can probably be assumed that people who take that interpretation don't join Starfleet in the first place, but "transporter objectors" would make an interesting storyline. (Or did Trek do that somewhere already? IDK.)

There's a LW-in-space story bunny: "I'm not married to you, I'm the widow of the you that was disintegrated by the transporter, so I can sleep with whomever I like and it's none of your business".

But yeah, that general "introduce a cool thing without bothering to work through the implications" thing is something that bugs me a lot. It's particularly obnoxious in "medieval" high-fantasy settings: teleportation, flying, invisibility, scrying, messaging magic, all these should fundamentally change the ways warfare and society work, yet somehow people are still building castles designed for none of these. I've grumbled before about how GoT asks "what if winter could last for decades" and somehow ends up answering that with "society would look pretty much the same".

So be careful in your world building, especially if you are inventing things for the sake of spectacle or for convenience. Your spectacle could paint your plot into a corner and your convenience could be too convenient for any plausibility whatsoever.

OTOH, Trek and many others show us that this is no great obstacle to success...

 

[MillieDynamite]

And, of course, it's just fiction and not reality that helps. But I don't think it is any more unbelievable than words being used to fix a pair of glasses, Oculus repairs, give me a fucking break.

 

[StillStunned]

And, of course, it's just fiction and not reality that helps. But I don't think it is any more unbelievable than words being used to fix a pair of glasses, Oculus repairs, give me a fucking break.

And not once in the entire series (or at least up to the point where I gave up) does anyone say, "Nah luv, this ain't gonna be cheap, see? And I can' come out before Tuesday, 'cos of the union, an' it will be double rate as it is."

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But yeah, that general "introduce a cool thing without bothering to work through the implications" thing is something that bugs me a lot. It's particularly obnoxious in "medieval" high-fantasy settings: teleportation, flying, invisibility, scrying, messaging magic, all these should fundamentally change the ways warfare and society work, yet somehow people are still building castles designed for none of these. I've grumbled before about how GoT asks "what if winter could last for decades" and somehow ends up answering that with "society would look pretty much the same".

Exactly. Like I said. It's fiction. You can do any kind of crazy wild fantastical stuff, no problem. And we should do this. We have imaginations. We should use them, push them to their limits, absolutely. But your world must have a LOGIC UNTO ITSELF and it should add up with no obvious loose ends.

OTOH, Trek and many others show us that this is no great obstacle to success...

Because a lot of people out there are easily amused.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I think the dumbest thing in the Star Trek universe is the no money; people do what they want to, and everything is paid for by the state. No personal ownership equates to no personal responsibility. Few folks would work at anything without pay being involved.

 

[NotWise]

My "Third Ring" stories are intended as part of an anthology. So far there are only two, and more are proving difficult.

Most of the world building is done in a very short preface that lays out an inherently tragic, but long past, circumstance. The stories are given by a story teller, and her dialog also builds the current setting for the stories. The stories all involve a common character named "Doctor" who recorded the stories for posterity and is ultimately the last survivor.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Does she have a big blue box with a flashy light on top?

My "Third Ring" stories are intended as part of an anthology. So far there are only two, and more are proving difficult.

Most of the world building is done in a very short preface that lays out an inherently tragic, but long past, circumstance. The stories are given by a story teller, and her dialog also builds the current setting for the stories. The stories all involve a common character named "Doctor" who recorded the stories for posterity and is ultimately the last survivor.

 

[StillStunned]

There is nothing wrong with that approach but you should still at least hint at the scope of power of such magical items, and limit them in some way. Deus ex Machina moments, or "Batman utility belt" as I usually call such moments, can truly ruin a story.
"There they were, cornered, at the brink of doom, enemy goblins and drakes far outnumbering them and getting closer by the second... and then Hiborious took out his secret weapon, the Scroll of WTF-PWN-THEM-ALL, and saved the day!"

Definitely! In my stories, I try to make it clear that even small magics are costly, either to make or to buy. A sorceress uses her magic to track the MC, and later teleports, and this is considered a "holy shit, let's not mess with her!" level of sorcery. Anyone whipping out a Scroll of Killemall would be out of place.

(And this is another reason why I'd be reluctant to let anyone muck around in my imaginary worlds.)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think the dumbest thing in the Star Trek universe is the no money; people do what they want to, and everything is paid for by the state. No person ownership equates to no personal responsibility. Few folks would work at anything without pay being involved.

Actually, that's the smartest part of it. Humankind evolved (or at least smartened up) to realize that the Earth provides far more than the people could ever consume and that there is no need for nor advantage to hoarding which leads to scarcity, which is really the only thing that puts monetary value on anything. Resources are harvested in efficient mass abundance and given out for free since there is no scarcity. It's actually difficult to believe that humankind travelling the stars with ease, obviously mastering energy resources, would NOT be at this evolved stage.

Star Trek is actually far far ahead of its contemporaries on this particular point of their world build.

However, they still have war. That would likely clean itself up as well.

 

[StillStunned]

My "Third Ring" stories are intended as part of an anthology. So far there are only two, and more are proving difficult.

Most of the world building is done in a very short preface that lays out an inherently tragic, but long past, circumstance. The stories are given by a story teller, and her dialog also builds the current setting for the stories. The stories all involve a common character named "Doctor" who recorded the stories for posterity and is ultimately the last survivor.

I started reading the other day. I should really finish it.

 

[NotWise]

Does she have a big blue box with a flashy light on top?

No, but she does have a button that brings the story to a close.

The preface for the anthology is:

Urta was a verdant planet, but its most common proteins were toxic to humans. Colonists were genetically altered so they and their descendants could thrive on Urta's native bounty. The scientists and engineers were supposed to be temporary residents on Urta. They were unaltered and survived there only because of the antidote they took every day.

Then came The Collapse. Communications with Earth ceased and the great ships came no more. The engineers and scientists knew that they would live only as long as their supply of antidote lasted, so they committed their remaining time to one purpose. They gave the colonists the knowledge and tools to sustain their culture. Then they were gone.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Exactly. Like I said. It's fiction. You can do any kind of crazy wild fantastical stuff, no problem. And we should do this. We have imaginations. We should use them, push them to their limits, absolutely. But your world must have a LOGIC UNTO ITSELF and it should add up with no obvious loose ends.

I also think it's a bit of a shame when an author introduces something that ought to have far-reaching effects and then spends a lot of energy justifying why it doesn't change much about the setting, instead of letting it change the setting.

Like the transporter example - it seems much more interesting to explore what society would look like if it is technologically straightforward to make copies of people, than to invest energy in making excuses for why the net effect of that technology ends up being "they save ten minutes on their daily commute and the food is nicer".

I can understand why it happens. It's intimidating making huge changes, and no matter how long you spend thinking things through there's a risk some reader will think of an angle you didn't notice. But I'm willing to cut a lot of slack for authors who are trying to be bold in their world-building.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Like the transporter example - it seems much more interesting to explore what society would look like if it is technologically straightforward to make copies of people, than to invest energy in making excuses for why the net effect of that technology ends up being "they save ten minutes on their daily commute and the food is nicer".

Precisely. : )

 

[StillStunned]

I also think it's a bit of a shame when an author introduces something that ought to have far-reaching effects and then spends a lot of energy justifying why it doesn't change much about the setting, instead of letting it change the setting.

Like the transporter example - it seems much more interesting to explore what society would look like if it is technologically straightforward to make copies of people, than to invest energy in making excuses for why the net effect of that technology ends up being "they save ten minutes on their daily commute and the food is nicer".

I can understand why it happens. It's intimidating making huge changes, and no matter how long you spend thinking things through there's a risk some reader will think of an angle you didn't notice. But I'm willing to cut a lot of slack for authors who are trying to be bold in their world-building.

Harry Harrison has a collection of stories called "One Step From Earth", which revolve around the theme of teleportation. They explore how it impacts society (including a vivid and quite horrifying depiction of a space battle) over time. If I recall correctly (it's been a while), the final story is about a pair of scientists discussing the human race's past, and how "past" humans only had ten fingers instead of twelve.

Although it's not my favourite HH work, I've always thought it was an interesting and brave concept - and like you say, it stands out from the sea of "we have this cool thing but we're not going to really think about it" worlds.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Selfish self-interest has been humanity's guiding light for nine or ten thousand years. We haven't and probably never will evolve past that. It's naive to believe we will or even can. I don't expect any alien race to be more or less self-centered than us. War is a natural outcome of haves and have-nots. Communism doesn't work, hasn't worked, and hasn't improved the lives of the average person in those states. To quote Animal Farm, it sounds good, but it doesn't work because some animals are more equal than others.

The thinking we will wake up and see the light is just pie in the sky by and by. We have the history of the world to tell us it won't happen. All we can do, as individual humans, is make things better as best we can. But don't pin your hopes on a Utopian future. For every utopia, there will be a dystopia. You're turning all first-century Christians in your view of the future. What happened to those people? Other folks became Christians fucked it all up.

Actually, that's the smartest part of it. Humankind evolved (or at least smartened up) to realize that the Earth provides far more than the people could ever consume and that there is no need for nor advantage to hoarding which leads to scarcity, which is really the only thing that puts monetary value on anything. Resources are harvested in efficient mass abundance and given out for free since there is no scarcity. It's actually difficult to believe that humankind travelling the stars with ease, obviously mastering energy resources, would NOT be at this evolved stage.

Star Trek is actually far far ahead of its contemporaries on this particular point of their world build.

However, they still have war. That would likely clean itself up as well.