Discussion on Fantasy Worldbuilding with Josh Done.
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Steven Erikson's Rejoice a Knife to the Heart is is exactly what Josh Done pointed out with ideology and sci fi writing.
Erik Stevenson's novel about first contact is really a far left socialist propaganda piece. It comes right out and states that the AI alien chose their human spokes woman because she is a feminist. Also China is the champion of morality for humanity. I could not finish the novel because it got the point were I did not know if the goal was to condition me through rhetoric and propaganda, or if it was some kind of very sly satire. A satire so good it might as well be that ideology's propaganda. Kind of like Marvels Safe Space and Snowflake character announcement last year. And Star Wars' High Republic announcement. It's a stereotype come true.
Date: 2022-07-15
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Comments and reviews: 9
Green&Blue
I am very slowly working on a Roman fantasy alt-history where a God saves the Roman Republic while another a God controls the roman empire. So the Roman Republic still falls but is able to hold onto Rome while escaping to Ireland then the Roman Empire does its thing and the Republic runs to a tie-in island in the center of the Bermuda triangle from my sci-fi setting. The course of Europe still happens. But in the 1600s the Republic now having guns, steam and magic decide to come back and fight the other a god. lead by a chosen one. who is a tie in sorta.
Anyway, it's taking so long because I been focusing on my second book in the sci-fi 1000 setting. which there is no space empire but many space countries some independent most are really tied to 1 of 5 human factions and unknown numbers of aliens. Which the setting ends 100 years after Humanity has expanded into all the milky way which the book is set like 500 years before that. and after ask me about that in 40 years.
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I am very slowly working on a Roman fantasy alt-history where a God saves the Roman Republic while another a God controls the roman empire. So the Roman Republic still falls but is able to hold onto Rome while escaping to Ireland then the Roman Empire does its thing and the Republic runs to a tie-in island in the center of the Bermuda triangle from my sci-fi setting. The course of Europe still happens. But in the 1600s the Republic now having guns, steam and magic decide to come back and fight the other a god. lead by a chosen one. who is a tie in sorta.
Anyway, it's taking so long because I been focusing on my second book in the sci-fi 1000 setting. which there is no space empire but many space countries some independent most are really tied to 1 of 5 human factions and unknown numbers of aliens. Which the setting ends 100 years after Humanity has expanded into all the milky way which the book is set like 500 years before that. and after ask me about that in 40 years.
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Nostripe361
One way I have fun with scifi and fantasy is to try to make good nations/states out of evil/bad ideologies. I like find it makes the world grey or a just alien to me when I can find some way to make a country that should be bad. For example I made a slave empire where they view everyone as a slave; even the emperor. Rather than a crown he wears a royal slave collar and his job is to provide for and work to the lowest level of slaves in their society.
Basically you are in a world completely alien to our own so why would every nation be either a bland good republic or the Nazis/Romans invading everyone.
Also had fun making weird races like how would a single gender race work? Would they have the same concept of beauty as we do? Are they natural or did someone create this race for. reasons?
Basically I feel you should have fun.
reply
One way I have fun with scifi and fantasy is to try to make good nations/states out of evil/bad ideologies. I like find it makes the world grey or a just alien to me when I can find some way to make a country that should be bad. For example I made a slave empire where they view everyone as a slave; even the emperor. Rather than a crown he wears a royal slave collar and his job is to provide for and work to the lowest level of slaves in their society.
Basically you are in a world completely alien to our own so why would every nation be either a bland good republic or the Nazis/Romans invading everyone.
Also had fun making weird races like how would a single gender race work? Would they have the same concept of beauty as we do? Are they natural or did someone create this race for. reasons?
Basically I feel you should have fun.
reply
Korakys
So many characters in the Malazan books, especially in the first few, are extreme combat veterans. Although it may not be obvious at first most having been soldiers for at least 100 years when we are introduced to them, some have been fighting for hundreds of thousands of years. That is why a lot of the characters come across as jaded. From book 5 onwards a lot of younger characters are brought in although the tone doesn't really deviate that much. Also, while it goes heavy in the all sides are bad thing, by the end the empire is generally shown as better than what it replaces.
Anyway, I enjoyed the books a lot. But in one the sequel series books the author leans hard into the despair side of things and got a lot of fan backlash because of that, enough that paused the planned follow-up and wrote something else instead.
reply
So many characters in the Malazan books, especially in the first few, are extreme combat veterans. Although it may not be obvious at first most having been soldiers for at least 100 years when we are introduced to them, some have been fighting for hundreds of thousands of years. That is why a lot of the characters come across as jaded. From book 5 onwards a lot of younger characters are brought in although the tone doesn't really deviate that much. Also, while it goes heavy in the all sides are bad thing, by the end the empire is generally shown as better than what it replaces.
Anyway, I enjoyed the books a lot. But in one the sequel series books the author leans hard into the despair side of things and got a lot of fan backlash because of that, enough that paused the planned follow-up and wrote something else instead.
reply
Ingold
21: 00- I think most alien invasion stories base their assumptions on events like The Opium Wars or the Scramble for Africa. They assume those absurdly lopsided victories (i. e. 19, 000 defeating 220, 000 with little to no casualties) were caused entirely by the technological advantage and not by the fact that the native regime was completely dysfunctional (in the case of the Opium Wars) or a bunch of martial assholes who spent the last few centuries running an extortion racket on the surrounding tribes (the Matabele & Zulus).
This could work if the humans before the invasion have become a decadent patronage society, destroyed much of their social organisation & economy through a devastating war, or the aliens destabilised things by covert means before invading.
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21: 00- I think most alien invasion stories base their assumptions on events like The Opium Wars or the Scramble for Africa. They assume those absurdly lopsided victories (i. e. 19, 000 defeating 220, 000 with little to no casualties) were caused entirely by the technological advantage and not by the fact that the native regime was completely dysfunctional (in the case of the Opium Wars) or a bunch of martial assholes who spent the last few centuries running an extortion racket on the surrounding tribes (the Matabele & Zulus).
This could work if the humans before the invasion have become a decadent patronage society, destroyed much of their social organisation & economy through a devastating war, or the aliens destabilised things by covert means before invading.
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Max
So I write a bit of science fantasy on occasion, and in general I percieve interstellar war as something similar to medieval war, lots of small castles (populated worlds) and large armies (large fleets of spaceships) needed to take them, with battles normally being quite rare compared to sieges that just end in surrender. With the battles that do occur they normally end with one side withdrawing due to being able to retreat in any direction thanks to space, and suffering only small casualties at most. This is why any leaders that are capable of decisively destroying enemy fleets are rare, and very successful.
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So I write a bit of science fantasy on occasion, and in general I percieve interstellar war as something similar to medieval war, lots of small castles (populated worlds) and large armies (large fleets of spaceships) needed to take them, with battles normally being quite rare compared to sieges that just end in surrender. With the battles that do occur they normally end with one side withdrawing due to being able to retreat in any direction thanks to space, and suffering only small casualties at most. This is why any leaders that are capable of decisively destroying enemy fleets are rare, and very successful.
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Davy
I disagree with his assessment of Middearth because it ignores the other factors such as past wars and declining society's that do inhibit growth. Also history, Europe itself had vast tracts of sparsely populated land up until the very late middle ages for different reasons as well.
The men of East had significant geographical obstacles to overcome plus Gondor would have been the first people they would have to conquer, making westward expansion far less desirable.
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I disagree with his assessment of Middearth because it ignores the other factors such as past wars and declining society's that do inhibit growth. Also history, Europe itself had vast tracts of sparsely populated land up until the very late middle ages for different reasons as well.
The men of East had significant geographical obstacles to overcome plus Gondor would have been the first people they would have to conquer, making westward expansion far less desirable.
reply
Don
I always wondered, in the PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT 2, if a nuclear armed F-117B landed in 1943 Berlin and was used to bomb Washington DC - would the US have really surrendered to the Germans?
Japan didnt surrender until the 2nd bombing and only did so because they thought we had alot more of them. As a more realistic option - the Germans had just built one atomic bomb and nuked Washington DC. Would Americans nationwide just said - ok we lost, come take us over.
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I always wondered, in the PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT 2, if a nuclear armed F-117B landed in 1943 Berlin and was used to bomb Washington DC - would the US have really surrendered to the Germans?
Japan didnt surrender until the 2nd bombing and only did so because they thought we had alot more of them. As a more realistic option - the Germans had just built one atomic bomb and nuked Washington DC. Would Americans nationwide just said - ok we lost, come take us over.
reply
UKishNZer
About the use of traditional fantasy races vs creating new ones, I'm using a mix of both where an ancient slaver company of sorts moved human undesirables with physical deformities like dwarves and giants to a region where isolation caused their mutations to turn into a common gene which created them as new races of sorts. Thus a realistic human setting contains dwarvish and giant races whose ancestors were just deformed humans.
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About the use of traditional fantasy races vs creating new ones, I'm using a mix of both where an ancient slaver company of sorts moved human undesirables with physical deformities like dwarves and giants to a region where isolation caused their mutations to turn into a common gene which created them as new races of sorts. Thus a realistic human setting contains dwarvish and giant races whose ancestors were just deformed humans.
reply
Taco
Hey whatifalthist! I understand you are an avid reader. What books would you recommend, geopolitical or otherwise to someone like me who is just getting into it. Ive never been one to particularly enjoy reading but I do want to self-educate more and it seems that there is too much untapped knowledge found within books to simply ignore. This goes out to fans as well, if yall have any suggestions as well it would be very appreciated.
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Hey whatifalthist! I understand you are an avid reader. What books would you recommend, geopolitical or otherwise to someone like me who is just getting into it. Ive never been one to particularly enjoy reading but I do want to self-educate more and it seems that there is too much untapped knowledge found within books to simply ignore. This goes out to fans as well, if yall have any suggestions as well it would be very appreciated.
reply
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