The Factory Floor

dot_Sp0T

04:58

@Bellerophon I never claimed it a perfect test

Worldbuilding Meta

14:31

1

Q: Can you help review the answers on this popular question?

We have a question that at the time of writing has over 30 answers (including deleted ones): Is there any job that can't be automated? With that sort of scale it's likely that excellent answers are being ignored, ones that can be improved are not being improved, and bad answers are not being de...

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Q: Biology of Fantasy: Let's Get Real, Shall We?

Before any of you asks, this has NO relation to the Anatomically Correct series. That is someone else's series and put too much emphasis on evolutionary plausibility. If evolutionary plausibility were the goal for this series, we'd be here forever trying to find some justifications for the real...

discussion

DaaaahWhoosh

I like it when there are answers on WB that have either Yes or No in big bold letters at the top. Especially if both appear on the same question

also, I wonder how long it'll take before there are robot priests in religions that exist today

also also, and I guess this should have come first, good morning WB

DaaaahWhoosh

15:17

yeah, I should have said good morning first, I forgot this place is empty on Fridays

dot_Sp0T

Well it's quarter past 5 here, so yeah

DaaaahWhoosh

we used to have more people around here from that side of the planet

I wonder where they all went

dot_Sp0T

Didn't you hear? The ground opened and swallowed half the continent

DaaaahWhoosh

D:

DaaaahWhoosh

15:56

wait... which half?

Tim B

16:18

the half you are standing on. You're actually in purgatory

AndreiROM

hello, all

@DaaaahWhoosh which side of the planet might that be, Mr. Whoosh?

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndreiROM the side that gets the sun four or more hours before I do

@TimB NOOOOOOOOooooo eh I guess it really isn't too bad here

TrEs-2b

16:33

Howdy

AndreiROM

@TrEs-2b hola

J. Doe

17:58

Hey, I'm new here.

I expect no one is on at the moment.

HDE 226868

@J.Doe Hi there. Do you need help?

J. Doe

I'm good, thanks. mostly trying to work out how to get into conversation here.

Like, I'm not sure under what circumstances I can make my own chat room.

HDE 226868

Well, that typically happens if you've had a discussion with another user in comments on a post, and it's getting long; you should get a prompt allowing you to create a new room for that. Also, if you want to discuss a specific subtopic of a subject with other users, you can make one.

J. Doe

OK, thanks.

Hmm, I would like to discuss the details of a Lord of the Rings esque fantasy during the early space age.

That's more discussion than question material. Should I just open up a room/topic here?

HDE 226868

If you think someone would be interested, then perhaps, yes.

J. Doe

18:07

Hmm, I mightn't have room creation privileges yet.

HDE 226868

Ah, yes, it requires 100 rep.

J. Doe

OK, will keep it in mind for later.

DaaaahWhoosh

you could also discuss things in this room

J. Doe

That sounds good.

DaaaahWhoosh

we like to discuss things here (though it might be a bit sparse for the next 60 or so hours)

J. Doe

18:19

Let's see, I was mostly interested in the idea of a space race to colonize the moon, and mars, between various fantasy factions.

60 hours?

DaaaahWhoosh

well, in 72 it'll be mid-Monday, so things will have picked back up

J. Doe

Huh, thought the weekend might be more popular.

My personal idea of the factions: There is one or two large dwarf corporations.

The elves and some of their allies have a confederation in regards to space travel (sort of like the stereotypical alliance).

I'm not sure if orcs or goblins could run a space program...

And there would be several human space programs.

DaaaahWhoosh

so, what's the reasoning behind colonizing things in space for these races?

J. Doe

You'd have at least one very militaristic human faction as well.

Essentially, the reasoning will be pretty similar. Resources, prestige, and fearing getting behind the competing nations/groups.

They'll still have different perspectives, priorities, and plays on how to accomplish this.

The dwarves will be drooling over the resources, and the technological marvel of it. You'd probably get some elves who love the romance of exploring space, and their longevity makes the length of space travel less foreboding.

The military humans are more interested in the military advantage of a moon base, but the idea of spreading out and colonizing has great appeal.

Orcs... if they can get up past the stratosphere, they might be doing it more because everyone else is and they don't want to be outdone. They might have some biological advantages here.

Radiation is a huge problem is space, so orcs and goblins might start to be used more for space operations, asteroid mining and the like, simply because they're expendable, and tough.

DaaaahWhoosh

hmm, it'd be interesting if orcs and goblins don't really have their own space program, but get hired out due to their resiliance

J. Doe

18:30

Yeah, I was considering that. They could still become pirates as things start to heat up.

If there are dark elves, the orcs might just join their space program.

DaaaahWhoosh

hmm yeah, if not dark elves then maybe humans, humans are always morally grey

J. Doe

Why not both?

I expect the orcs are plenty fragmented and helping whoever pays them, anyway.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, might as well

J. Doe

That could create some interesting conflicts of interest. If the orcs are supplying a lot of the money and manpower, while the dark elves are organizing it and providing the technological ingenuity, there may be disagreements on who is in charge.

DaaaahWhoosh

"You thought you were in charge, you thought you could control us all the way to Venus... but you flew too close to the sun"

J. Doe

18:34

You could have interesting stories about the dark elves' rocket. The dark elven officer is shocked at the insubordination of some of the elected orc astronauts. One of them is rude, lazy, risks turning violent, and seems to only be there because he thought space would be fun. The reason he was elected? He's a very dangerous killer!

He mightn't be a bad military leader either, on Earth.

@DaaaahWhoosh Hahah, exactly!

I like the idea of having moon wizards come into it, at some point.

DaaaahWhoosh

I can never say no to moon wizards

J. Doe

I had the idea of the NASA esque organization getting a visit from a very casually dressed, funny old man without any shoes, excitedly telling them how happy he is they're going to visit the moon, and he can't wait to see them.

Then, when the moon lander stops, he walks over to the astronauts and shows them around.

In the same tacky clothes without shoes.

Later on, you could have more serious stories, where you find the hidden hollows and crevices of the moon filled with plant life and civilization, or abandoned temples with large stone guardians.

Perhaps you find a monster that has been locked away in the moon....

I did want to write a sourcebook on this subject, but I didn't think it'd make enough to be worth the effort.

DaaaahWhoosh

have you by any chance played Destiny?

J. Doe

I haven't actually gotten to play it. I hear the story did not live up to the great setting and presentation.

Those early trailers really had me excited.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, it definitely left a lot to be desired. I just wanted to point out that it is a setting you may want to make sure to distance yourself from

J. Doe

18:46

In which direction?

Like, avoid its failings, or avoid association, or seeming like a ripoff?

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, the last one

just wanting to make sure you know it exists, if you didn't you could end up becoming exactly like it by accident

J. Doe

I'd be going more for the realistic NASA or The Martian theme and aesthetic rather than the wild west fantasy scifi feeling of Destiny.

Where even if it's elves and dwarves, you have very realistic space ships, propulsion, and hard scifi moon bases.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, that's the part that makes me really want to hear more about your world

J. Doe

Back, had to check something.

I'm glad this is interesting to you, I wasn't sure how good the premise was.

I was wondering if cloning should be a major part of this setting. I think it's a little too advanced for early space age.

DaaaahWhoosh

depends on the type of cloning

J. Doe

18:56

Cloning is really handy for space colonization, and has all sorts of corporate greed implications.

Well, cloning right now is possible, but the clone dies after a few years.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, but I assume that's probably because there's not much research going into the process

J. Doe

Hard to say, I haven't done extensive research into it. I don't expect we'll see a breakthrough anytime soon.

DaaaahWhoosh

I don't really see the point of cloning, at least not the realistic version. If you have to wait for them to grow up, then you might as well just have natural children

they may not be exact copies, but they'll be close, and you can teach them to act like you do

J. Doe

I was going to make cloning a major part of a later space age part of the setting. Though, I was considering a more fantasy cloning element for the early space age, specifically the homunculus.

There are some advantages. It is more effective than artificial insemination, gives you more control of the DNA of the humans, but most importantly clones will likely have questionable human rights in space.

It becomes much better if you can get artificial wombs.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, that's the part that really makes it worthwhile

J. Doe

19:07

In general, it's just a matter that it's cheaper to raise a hundred kids on site, than to transport a hundred people.

With clone embryos, you might be able to guarantee twins.

Either way, I probably won't make that a major thing for the early space setting since early cloning is pretty questionable.

DaaaahWhoosh

if orcs are like they are for Tolkien, basically corrupted elves, then maybe they have lots of weird genetic defects. It would create an incentive to advance birthing technology

if you can find an orc with good DNA, you want to make clones of that orc

J. Doe

I would like to develop homunculus stories, for the fact that the difficulty of transporting humans makes the idea of building human servants on site, who don't have as many human rights and might be less susceptible to the horrors of space, would make FNASA VERY interested in them.

That is true.

Orcs might have some ambitions to all be huge and muscular killing machines. Many orcs are short, gnarled, with bad teeth and other issues.

I'm considering what to do with the homunculi. They'll probably end up causing trouble for their masters somehow. One possibility is, everything goes well... until they start attacking and killing everyone. The reason behind it may turn out to be some other force on Mars was controlling them, overpowering the wizards' control.

Oh, that reminds me, I had an idea that necromancers might be brought to the Mars or the Moon, and everyone is seriously freaked out by it.

Skeletons walking about on Mars' surface, with thin plastic covering to barely protect their bones... reminding the other settlements that the necromancers may well turn their bones into more puppets.

DaaaahWhoosh

oh wow, that is cool.

almost like the necromancers are programmers/engineers, and the skeletons are robots. Except creepy dead-body robots

and it really works with the idea of having to recycle everything in space

J. Doe

Mm, so people are resorting to weirder and less desirable magicks.

I was considering tests where vampires and the like were sent into space, but I'm not sure what to do with that yet.

A vampire on the space station seems a good horror movie setup.

I feel there should be a Martian populace of primitive aliens.

Not very numerous, not very great, stone age or possibly a little later in weaponry. But compared to the handful of settlers sent to Mars... it's like a million to 1.

DaaaahWhoosh

19:23

I wonder what would happen to a werewolf in a moon colony...

J. Doe

The mystery develops where ruins are found on Mars, and it turns out that there was once a great civilization there which the locals revere. I was considering some of them might wake up, and lay terrible grief upon the settlers.

The Earth might act as the moon, on the moon.

Depends if Earth can reflect a radiation spectrum in excess of 17 million zeno units per second.

Let's see... I wish I could go more into the technical points about the setting, but those will require a lot of research. I would like to get into contact with Atomic Rockets for that.

Stuff like dwarves having thicker skin, and so resisting radiation better on the biological level, they are putting more emphasis into digging deep into the moon and Mars in their colonization.

They'd also have ambitions to grab a sizable asteroid and build a mobile base into it, to protect the astronauts from radiation with hundreds of tons of rock.

Along with nukes for propulsion.

DaaaahWhoosh

shouldn't the dwarves have less resistance to radiation if they're so keep to get away from it?

J. Doe

19:38

Well, more resistance is still relative.

To travel to Mars, you have a LOT of radiation to deal with. Same with living on the moon.

The dwarves are just the guys with so much tradition with mining and living underground, that burrowing into lots of protective rock and metal makes all the sense in the world to them.

DaaaahWhoosh

ah, yes I guess that makes sense then

J. Doe

There'd also be a lot of political action. The military group may get to the moon and set up a base first... then claim the moon for themselves.

They'd declare no one can go to it without permission.

Some people would still send missions to the moon, and have their astronauts captured and kept as prisoners of war.

This leads to a Lunar Cold War.

Like when Europe was at peace as they killed each other out in the colonies.

I would like to include some space dragons.

A dragon might just be powerful enough to fly to the moon,just because he's curious what they're all doing up there.

Or they may awaken some moon dragons...

Of course, I would like to work out some culture, superstition, mythology and monsters among the Martians.

Which will be notably less traditional.

Hmmm... theoretically, I should put more thoughts into the stereotypes of this sort of setting, like I mentioned the Alliance style elves. They can be good inspiration for what to do, what to avoid, what to lampshade subvert or reconstruct.

DaaaahWhoosh

yep, stereotypes do seem like a good place to start with most things. Start with what is known before delving into the unknown

J. Doe

Trying to find the right tv tropes page with a list of tropes for this...

Oh right, I should have a reason no one found the Martians sooner.

They might naturally hide everything in the caves they live in, and avoid weird mechanical things which they mistook for the terrifying Ancient Ones.

DaaaahWhoosh

20:00

if they're sufficiently primitive, it's probably going to be hard to see them from Earth

J. Doe

It will seem like there is no life on Mars for a while, as the colonists will spend many years without seeing a single alien.

DaaaahWhoosh

oh, you mean after colonists arrive

J. Doe

Yeah, just that the sattelites and drones sent to Mars also turned up nothing.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, that could be tough

J. Doe

So they haven't built major cities on the surface.

Essentially, the colonists will be so few, and Mars so huge, and the aliens so cautious, they'll be sitting right on top of them for over a decade, without realizing there are aliens.

DaaaahWhoosh

20:02

that would certainly make the colonists feel quite foolish

J. Doe

Mm, and they'll have all been fighting amongst themselves for a long time in the meanwhile.

TV Tropes, as usual, is impossible to search.

Some of these overused setting tropes... I never even heard of them.

As a point of interest, all the colonists, including enemies settle close to each other. The reason being: Everyone is actually quite dependant on one another when things go wrong.

These tropes seem pretty useless. It feels like most of the tropes that should be there aren't.

Rory Alsop

20:22

@J.Doe www.imdb.com/title/tt0089489/

:-)

J. Doe

Space vampires attacking Earth? I could they miss out on the much more thematic Earth vampires attacking Space!?

Rory Alsop

because that would only scare space folks, not us earth types :-)

J. Doe

There'd probably still be plenty of human victims in space.

Or Earth vampires vs. space vampires... they really need to mix it up.

Rory Alsop

20:41

@J.Doe sneaking up on folks in space would be a problem. If the vampire is outside a hab trying to get in - that's not very sneaky, so they'd have to hide fangs etc

Bellerophon

Also, in space how do they hide from the sun?

Rory Alsop

umbrellas

simple

J. Doe

21:02

VAmpires normally blend in with the local population, which is part of the witch hunt thing for it.

Whether they can sneak up on a spaceship depends on the extent of their powers. If the ship docks with the ship that sent out a distress signal, only to realize the vampire must now be hiding on their own ship, you've got a basic horror tale.

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