Last time, I talked about working out every culture's homeworld, how advanced they are, and when they achieved FTL tech. So, knowing that, the rest is simple, right? Whoever has the most advanced tech, who gets there first, they're the most powerful, right?
Not necessarily.
First of all, there's a matter of location. Where species are in terms of not only each other, but other worlds, and what those resources mean. A species that hits the stars and finds they have thirty-some odd other stars within 10 light-years, and most of those have vibrant solar systems chock full of potential resources-- they're going to have a different interstellar experience than a species whose closest star is 15 light-years away.
Even with that, I make deliberate decisions, since I'm the worldbuilder here, for example, if a species takes an aggressive or isolationist stance in exploration. If they focus on staying close to home, or perhaps try and spread themselves thinner than they should.
For example-- I've set up my FTL rules so increases in velocity jump in increments. Ships form a field around themselves, and the level of that field determines their velocity. An Alpha Field is the slowest FTL field, then Beta Field, Gamma and so on.* This gave me an easy way to benchmark future tech-- I can measure
general advancement of cultures compared to each other without having to
get too specific about what that means, techwise. A culture that can
form a Zeta field is more advanced in general than a culture that one
can only form a Delta field. I don't need to figure out the specifics
of hull composition or missile yields for every different culture. So, every culture is rated by their maximum speed. And with that, I can estimate a reasonable radius a species can maintain control over. That Zeta culture can spread out, say, 30 light-years from home, while the Delta really can only manage 16. But at the same time, a culture's nature might be to push themselves. They might have to push themselves to reach resources they need.
So, that process of building every culture out from their homeworlds, figuring out what they build and where, who they bump into, what they decide to do when they bump into each other-- that's the real gearwork of the worldbuild here. It's not sexy, and it's not stuff that really appears in the text. Iceberg rules apply in spades here.
Then comes the next big step: figuring out who the Big Dogs are. Of course, the Big Dogs are the ones I chose-- especially the ones that are big dogs because they joined up to form larger empires. I've got eight First Tier* level powers, and four of those are joint-species collectives of some sort or another. And also, that isn't just about tech level, but about dominion and influence. The Colmerohn are more advanced than the Zutheka-- but the Colmerohn are slow and deliberate, and would rather withdraw than engage in conflict, while the Zutheka are hyper-aggressive conquerors. So the Colmerohn are a Third Tier power, and the Zutheka are First Tier.
The next step: figuring out the "borders".
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*- I've worked out the math, but you knew I did. An Alpha field will make the trip to Alpha Centauri in 2.95 years. With a Delta field, it takes 40 days. An Epsilon field cuts that down to under two weeks. If you managed to form a Xi field**, that trip is slightly over a minute.
**- No one has a Xi-field level of tech.
***- There are also three Zeroth-level, i.e. very high tech isolationists.
Showing posts with label space opera manifesto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space opera manifesto. Show all posts
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Monday, August 27, 2012
Future Worldbuilding: Aliens, Form follows Function
Alien life can take all sorts of shapes and sizes. When it comes to the various flora and fauna of other worlds, there's no limit to where your imagination can take you.
But, when you start talking about intelligent, civilized, technological aliens... then you need to have some limits. Specifically, in terms of physical form. For a species to reach the stars, they have to have the capacity to create the means to do so. So your intelligent, star-faring species HAS to had a similar physical capacity: able to dominate its ecosystem enough to acquire its caloric needs and survive to reproduction, and with the fine motor necessary to build simplex and complex technology.
So, on some level, I am fond of going to the Humanoid shape: humans are unique on this planet in that they are the only species that can run a mile, swim a mile, climb a tree and throw a rock, let alone do calculus, build microchips and post on Facebook. It's highly functional and adaptable. Is it the only one? No, but don't dismiss it. Yes, most shows and movies went to the humanoid well most of the time for aliens, but that was mostly because actors who are otherwise are notoriously unreliable in learning their lines.*
Some other forms that I use, as a basis for alien building:
Bipedal: Technically different from "humanoid", which implies two legs, two arms, a body trunk and a head on top. "Bipedal" just beans two legs, and the rest of the design might be quite different. It should, however, maintain bilateral symmetry.
Tripedal: Three legs, and I usually have this also mean three fine-motor arms as well, if not full on trilateral symmetry.
Centauroid: Four legs, two grasping arms. Sometimes I might use "Insectoid" for this form as well, if the two grasping arms double as walking limbs.
Quadruped: Four legs. Now, you still have to deal with fine motor control. Two or all four legs might double as fine-motor graspers. Or there might be another method: the Zaaatel are catlike creatures with strong cilia-like tentacles coming from their spines. A quadruped could also have eight limbs: four walking, four grasping.
Hexaped: Similar to the "Insectoid" or "Centauroid". I might use this instead of "Insectoid" A. if the species didn't have a chitonous exoskeleton and B. if all six limbs were walkers and graspers.
Arachnoid: Eight walking/grasping limbs.
Medusoid: Snake-like body with two grasping limbs.
Centepecoid: Catch-all for any segmented-body with more than eight walking/grasping limbs.
Tentacloid: Catch-all for any species that has multiple tentacles for both locomotion and fine manipulation. This can vary: the Starkasians have three large-body-trunk tentacles for locomotion, and six fine-motor ones for manipulation. The Calitras are Winged Tentacloids, with twelve fine-motor tentacles for maniuplation, and wings for locomotion.
Any other important shapes you think I might have missed? Let me know.
---
*Farscape, and to a much lesser degree Babylon 5, tried to avoid this somewhat with puppets. Farscape, being a Jim Henson Studio, succeeded with this to a far greater degree.
But, when you start talking about intelligent, civilized, technological aliens... then you need to have some limits. Specifically, in terms of physical form. For a species to reach the stars, they have to have the capacity to create the means to do so. So your intelligent, star-faring species HAS to had a similar physical capacity: able to dominate its ecosystem enough to acquire its caloric needs and survive to reproduction, and with the fine motor necessary to build simplex and complex technology.
So, on some level, I am fond of going to the Humanoid shape: humans are unique on this planet in that they are the only species that can run a mile, swim a mile, climb a tree and throw a rock, let alone do calculus, build microchips and post on Facebook. It's highly functional and adaptable. Is it the only one? No, but don't dismiss it. Yes, most shows and movies went to the humanoid well most of the time for aliens, but that was mostly because actors who are otherwise are notoriously unreliable in learning their lines.*
Some other forms that I use, as a basis for alien building:
Bipedal: Technically different from "humanoid", which implies two legs, two arms, a body trunk and a head on top. "Bipedal" just beans two legs, and the rest of the design might be quite different. It should, however, maintain bilateral symmetry.
Tripedal: Three legs, and I usually have this also mean three fine-motor arms as well, if not full on trilateral symmetry.
Centauroid: Four legs, two grasping arms. Sometimes I might use "Insectoid" for this form as well, if the two grasping arms double as walking limbs.
Quadruped: Four legs. Now, you still have to deal with fine motor control. Two or all four legs might double as fine-motor graspers. Or there might be another method: the Zaaatel are catlike creatures with strong cilia-like tentacles coming from their spines. A quadruped could also have eight limbs: four walking, four grasping.
Hexaped: Similar to the "Insectoid" or "Centauroid". I might use this instead of "Insectoid" A. if the species didn't have a chitonous exoskeleton and B. if all six limbs were walkers and graspers.
Arachnoid: Eight walking/grasping limbs.
Medusoid: Snake-like body with two grasping limbs.
Centepecoid: Catch-all for any segmented-body with more than eight walking/grasping limbs.
Tentacloid: Catch-all for any species that has multiple tentacles for both locomotion and fine manipulation. This can vary: the Starkasians have three large-body-trunk tentacles for locomotion, and six fine-motor ones for manipulation. The Calitras are Winged Tentacloids, with twelve fine-motor tentacles for maniuplation, and wings for locomotion.
Any other important shapes you think I might have missed? Let me know.
---
*Farscape, and to a much lesser degree Babylon 5, tried to avoid this somewhat with puppets. Farscape, being a Jim Henson Studio, succeeded with this to a far greater degree.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Future Worldbuilding: How I Love Spreadsheets and Map Tools
All right, so I've talked about mapping things out and alien civilizations, but when dealing with things on an interstellar scale, when you're talking about 4660 stars within a 100 light-year radius of Earth, with 153 alien homeworlds, not to mention colonies, outposts, stations and other holdings, one has to have a way to keep all that straight.
It helps that, when you come down to it, I'm a BIG spreadsheet geek.
About a decade or so ago, I had an office job in which my duties could be boiled down to, "Make Excel do my bidding." I'm not saying I'm an expert at Excel, but I've figured out a lot of tricks, without which I would never have been able to construct this universe, this interstellar community, to the degree that I have.
One of my biggest struggles is trying to visualize all that data, get a real sense of who is neighbor to who, where borders are. I'm still a big fan of ChView, which is an old program but has the advantage of being (relatively) easy to import Excel data into stellar maps. But even with that, it's still challenging to really feel who is close to who. I've developed some tricks-- being able to define any homeworld as a central star, and then getting the distance from that star to every other star, and then figure out who is close to that.
Also, I like having data at my fingertips that I can use to generate cultural ideas. Since I used a certain degree of randomization to determine which worlds had life, which life was intelligent, and which civilizations had reached the stars, to then look through that information and say to myself: OK, these three civilizations are all within a (interstellar) stone's throw of each other, so what does that mean? Are they allies, or enemies? Or, these two are close to each other, but also relatively close to this more advanced, aggressive species. So are they united against the common enemy?
I'm curious, does anyone out there have more interesting star-map making tools? I do like ChView, but it has flaws, for certain-- it's an old program that hasn't been updated in many years. But is there anything better? Most of the other things I've seen are weaker in design, or are not capable of importing data in an easy way; I'd have to start from scratch. Any recommendations?
It helps that, when you come down to it, I'm a BIG spreadsheet geek.
About a decade or so ago, I had an office job in which my duties could be boiled down to, "Make Excel do my bidding." I'm not saying I'm an expert at Excel, but I've figured out a lot of tricks, without which I would never have been able to construct this universe, this interstellar community, to the degree that I have.
One of my biggest struggles is trying to visualize all that data, get a real sense of who is neighbor to who, where borders are. I'm still a big fan of ChView, which is an old program but has the advantage of being (relatively) easy to import Excel data into stellar maps. But even with that, it's still challenging to really feel who is close to who. I've developed some tricks-- being able to define any homeworld as a central star, and then getting the distance from that star to every other star, and then figure out who is close to that.
Also, I like having data at my fingertips that I can use to generate cultural ideas. Since I used a certain degree of randomization to determine which worlds had life, which life was intelligent, and which civilizations had reached the stars, to then look through that information and say to myself: OK, these three civilizations are all within a (interstellar) stone's throw of each other, so what does that mean? Are they allies, or enemies? Or, these two are close to each other, but also relatively close to this more advanced, aggressive species. So are they united against the common enemy?
I'm curious, does anyone out there have more interesting star-map making tools? I do like ChView, but it has flaws, for certain-- it's an old program that hasn't been updated in many years. But is there anything better? Most of the other things I've seen are weaker in design, or are not capable of importing data in an easy way; I'd have to start from scratch. Any recommendations?
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Future Worldbuilding: New Life, New Civilizations and the Mos Eisley Cantina
What's a Space Opera without some aliens?* I'm firmly of the opinion that once you've breached the idea of humans going into space, traveling faster than light, aliens are an inevitable, logical step. Of course, how those aliens are presented, and what they do can vary wildly.
This ties to stellar geography, of course. An alien species might be a peaceful, enlightened civilization that only wants to make the prettiest baskets in the history of the cosmos, but if they have a highly advanced conqueror species in their interstellar backyard, that's the thing that's going to define them.
Now, there's always an urge to show a vast interstellar community. Regardless of other politics, there is an urge to showcase places that act as a crossroads for dozens of alien species. These places are usually bars. Of course, there is the classic Cantina Scene in Star Wars, and Star Trek, Babylon 5 and especially Farscape have all milked this trope for everything its worth. And it's fun, and it looks impressive-- though usually that's because the make-up and art design people are having a blast, and not because much thought is put into who any of these people are. The idea that they could all share a space-- comfortably in the same atmosphere and gravity-- let a lone that a single establishment could easily serve all their needs... that's challenging to believe. And more to the point, they tend to be just set dressing. B5 tended to purge the more set-dressing aliens early on, so there were very few random-aliens-of-unnamed-species. But most of the time, aliens are just thrown out there, with little thought about how or why they are there.
Me, I can't work like that. Just like I need to know the stellar geography, that includes the political geography. Neighbors matter. Tech levels of neighbors matter. If you have an area where there are several species that are FTL-capable, then any species that is not is dependent on the good graces of those that are.
In my setting, there are 11 intelligent species whose homeworlds are within 30 light-years of Earth. Of those, 5 are of starfaring technology, and three of them were starfaring before humans. Fortunately for humanity, those three were in alliance with each other, and agreed upon a rule of non-interference with planet-bound species. We thrived and reached out because they let us. Some fifty light-years away is the Surani homeworld, and they didn't share that philosophy: the two closest species to them (the Xaedon and the Dalians) were incorporated into their empire, conquered and integrated as servant classes effortlessly. And within 30 light-years of the highly advanced Rilixa, there are no intelligent species. Not one remains in what they've defined as their space.
I've done a lot of work along these lines: within 100ly of Earth, I've defined (roughly, mind you, roughly) 153 alien species, of which 69 are starfaring. For me, this was groundwork. This was just getting the lay of the land so I could get a sense of the stories I could write.
Because for me, I have to know where I am, and who's around me, before I really have a sense of what's going on.
---
*- Firefly or Battlestar Galactica, I guess.
This ties to stellar geography, of course. An alien species might be a peaceful, enlightened civilization that only wants to make the prettiest baskets in the history of the cosmos, but if they have a highly advanced conqueror species in their interstellar backyard, that's the thing that's going to define them.
Now, there's always an urge to show a vast interstellar community. Regardless of other politics, there is an urge to showcase places that act as a crossroads for dozens of alien species. These places are usually bars. Of course, there is the classic Cantina Scene in Star Wars, and Star Trek, Babylon 5 and especially Farscape have all milked this trope for everything its worth. And it's fun, and it looks impressive-- though usually that's because the make-up and art design people are having a blast, and not because much thought is put into who any of these people are. The idea that they could all share a space-- comfortably in the same atmosphere and gravity-- let a lone that a single establishment could easily serve all their needs... that's challenging to believe. And more to the point, they tend to be just set dressing. B5 tended to purge the more set-dressing aliens early on, so there were very few random-aliens-of-unnamed-species. But most of the time, aliens are just thrown out there, with little thought about how or why they are there.
Me, I can't work like that. Just like I need to know the stellar geography, that includes the political geography. Neighbors matter. Tech levels of neighbors matter. If you have an area where there are several species that are FTL-capable, then any species that is not is dependent on the good graces of those that are.
In my setting, there are 11 intelligent species whose homeworlds are within 30 light-years of Earth. Of those, 5 are of starfaring technology, and three of them were starfaring before humans. Fortunately for humanity, those three were in alliance with each other, and agreed upon a rule of non-interference with planet-bound species. We thrived and reached out because they let us. Some fifty light-years away is the Surani homeworld, and they didn't share that philosophy: the two closest species to them (the Xaedon and the Dalians) were incorporated into their empire, conquered and integrated as servant classes effortlessly. And within 30 light-years of the highly advanced Rilixa, there are no intelligent species. Not one remains in what they've defined as their space.
I've done a lot of work along these lines: within 100ly of Earth, I've defined (roughly, mind you, roughly) 153 alien species, of which 69 are starfaring. For me, this was groundwork. This was just getting the lay of the land so I could get a sense of the stories I could write.
Because for me, I have to know where I am, and who's around me, before I really have a sense of what's going on.
---
*- Firefly or Battlestar Galactica, I guess.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Further Smaller Steps For Man
Yesterday was a pretty amazing day, one that gives me a lot of hope for the future of the human race. For one, Curiosity landed on Mars, and even though there wasn't a lot to see, it did make for some exciting spectacle. Watching the video feed from NASA's JPL was full of intensity, as they would applaud every minor success. But that's not the only thing: Oscar Pistorius ran in the Olympic semi-finals in the Men's 400m. He may not have won, but he ran.
Just let that really sink into your brain: In 24 hours*, we landed a robot science lab on Mars AND a man with no legs ran in the Olympics.
That's pretty damn amazing, what we-- the collective we of humanity-- can achieve.
Of course, being a writer-- especially a SF/F one-- this puts me in the mind of Future Worldbuilding. What can we achieve, what can't we achieve, and where are we going to go? When I've been crafting a Space Opera Setting, one of my goals was to maintain a certain degree of plausibility.**
So, for the rest of August, it will be Future Worldbuilding Month, with a specific focus on Space Opera. I'll talk some about my own ideas, compare some to my strong points of inspiration.***
So let's look to the future.
---
*- I'm pretty sure they were within the same 24 hour period, but it could have been a few hours more apart than that. But close enough.
**- In as much as a setting with aliens and FTL travel can be plausible.
***- Including what are, in my mind, the five defining series of Televised Space Opera: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. We'll get into all of those.
Just let that really sink into your brain: In 24 hours*, we landed a robot science lab on Mars AND a man with no legs ran in the Olympics.
That's pretty damn amazing, what we-- the collective we of humanity-- can achieve.
Of course, being a writer-- especially a SF/F one-- this puts me in the mind of Future Worldbuilding. What can we achieve, what can't we achieve, and where are we going to go? When I've been crafting a Space Opera Setting, one of my goals was to maintain a certain degree of plausibility.**
So, for the rest of August, it will be Future Worldbuilding Month, with a specific focus on Space Opera. I'll talk some about my own ideas, compare some to my strong points of inspiration.***
So let's look to the future.
---
*- I'm pretty sure they were within the same 24 hour period, but it could have been a few hours more apart than that. But close enough.
**- In as much as a setting with aliens and FTL travel can be plausible.
***- Including what are, in my mind, the five defining series of Televised Space Opera: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. We'll get into all of those.
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