The Factory Floor - 2016-10-21

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Green

03:07

@MonicaCellio, WizBiz is exactly the book series I was looking for. Thank you, thank you.

Monica Cellio

@Green you're welcome! A coworker turned me on to it and I'm happy to pass it along. I never learned Forth, but I've heard just enough about it to be amused by the idea of writing a magic system in it. Also, plenty of geek humor in there. Enjoy. :-)

amazon.com/Wizards-Bane-Wiz-Biz-Book-ebook/dp/B00BER5FS0/…

^^^ That's the first book in the series. I think Wiz Biz is a compilation of the first two books. (I said Wiz Biz, but I actually read them individually.)

Green

03:25

@MonicaCellio I bought WizBiz for my Kindle. Reading it now....

Monica Cellio

@Green I read them on Kindle too.

Green

I'm to the part where Wiz first starts making logical conclusions about the world he's in. It's gonna be so much fun to watch him figure out how magic works then go all Donald Knuth on it.

Monica Cellio

I quite enjoyed watching that. :-)

Universe Factory

03:44

Universe Factory - Medium: The Factory Floor — Episode 1: No Pressure

posted on October 21, 2016 by James Beins

Well we finally did it. World Building has a podcast. Dubbed The Factory Floor, the first episode has been posted to YouTube! https://medium.com/media/31f2aed8239b852797a052b4923e8ce6/hrefIn this episode, brought to you by Celebrity Jeopardy and Soylent Green, we discuss the concept of world building, the alignment of historical and fictional characters, why we love building worlds, and in case…

5

2 hours later…

dot_Sp0T

05:36

@NexTerren seems they switched the scripting language since I used it last time

Nex Terren

05:53

@dot_Sp0T I find that totally believable; Javascript is seen as a lot more modern and trendy than Perl.

bilbo_pingouin

06:21

@NexTerren yeah better messy than unreadable...

hm...

7 hours later…

AndyD273

13:21

@NexTerren What are you talking about? Javascript is great. You can write really complex things using only 6 characters: jazcash.com/a-javascript-journey-with-only-six-characters

@MonicaCellio Hey Monica, sounds interesting, is it anything like the the Magic 2.0 books?

amazon.com/Magic-2-0-3-Book-Series/dp/B00TP1RYO0

Monica Cellio

14:09

@AndyD273 I haven't read Magic 2.0. Sounds like fun -- wish it supported a free Kindle sample, but at $3.99 maybe I'll just buy the first book. Wizard's Bane is about a programmer from our world who's "recruited" by the wizards of an alternate world. What the wizards don't anticipate is that the programmer, being a programmer, enjoys hacking on their magic system.

Journeyman Geek

@MonicaCellio @Green - typically I tend to get baen's books directly off their website - there's no DRM, and if you're getting new titles, they have pretty sweet monthly bundles

(total unpaid plug. They publish too many of my favourite writers ;p)

Monica Cellio

@JourneymanGeek oh, that's Baen? I hadn't noticed, and I too prefer to get my books DRM-free from them when possible.

AndyD273

That sounds pretty cool. I just wish that it had an audiobook version available. I haven't had time to actually read anything in quite a while, but I can go through audiobooks really fast.

The Magic 2.0 series is really good. I bought the kindle version and added the audible version with the whispersync bundle. The narrator is great.

Monica Cellio

Fortunately in general, but unfortunate for this particular application, my commute isn't really long enough to support listening to audiobooks. The only times I've listened to books instead of reading them is when taking longer trips. The narrator makes a huge difference and is rarely mentioned in reviews of the book. So thanks for that info.

Journeyman Geek

sadly my commute is terrible for either

AndyD273

14:15

You can add the audio version for $2, and if you listen to books at all it's totally worth it.

Journeyman Geek

10 minute walk, and 1+3 stops on train

AndyD273

I listen to them all the time around the house. Cleaning, cooking, working on projects, etc

my commute is only 8-10 minutes, but I still go through at least 1 book a week.

AndreiROM

hi, all

Monica Cellio

I can't find this book on the Baen site. Are you sure it's theirs?

Journeyman Geek

er

the one you linked

Monica Cellio

14:19

That was an Amazon link.

AndyD273

baen.com/wizard-s-bane.html

Monica Cellio

Oh, when you talked about buying from Bane did you mean Wizard's Bane?

AndreiROM

baen is a pretty great publisher

Monica Cellio

Ah yes, I see. I thought you were saying that Magic 2.0 was Baen.

I like Baen.

AndreiROM

their ebook prices are reasonable, and they go on sale every once in a while, which is awesome

AndyD273

14:21

As far as I can tell, Magic 2.0 is Amazon only. I haven't seen it anywhere else anyway, including libraries.

AndreiROM

my only gripe is that their website sucks

James

Mornin all

Monica Cellio

I see from the Amazon description that Magic 2.0 is "Kindle in motion", meaning it adds graphics and videos and stuff like that. I just want to read a novel (words), and I'm not sure my Kindle Paperwhite would support that other stuff anyway, not that I'm assuming I'd be able to see it well on a small screen (poor vision). Is ignoring all that going to mean I miss important stuff? Is there a complete novel in there that doesn't rely on extras?

@James Morning!

James

and don't give me that timezone crap you all need to get on board with central time

AndyD273

@MonicaCellio It was a complete novel first, and then they added in some extra stuff.

James

14:24

@MonicaCellio Morning :0

:)

...wrong face

Monica Cellio

@James the whole world should just UTC and get over it.

@AndyD273 great, thanks.

James

@MonicaCellio Agreed. So how're you feeling about doing the podcast with us now that you have had a chance to sleep on it?

Monica Cellio

@James sure, sounds like fun!

James

Good :)

Monica Cellio

BTW, I still don't know what's up with sound on my end. Other applications come through the headset just fine; it's just VSee that comes out of the speakers instead.

James

14:26

I am thinking we will probably be looking at the first week of November...

Monica Cellio

Anyway, that didn't seem to be disruptive on your end and we send individual audio files in anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. It's just weird.

James

hrm...maybe there is a local setting on vsee...I can play around with it later see what I can figure out

Monica Cellio

@James you mean the week after next? Nov 1 is a Tuesday, hence ambiguity about "first week of".

Journeyman Geek

@MonicaCellio what OS?

James

@MonicaCellio no, no problems. The audio coming from you was good.

AndyD273

14:27

I really support self publishing to let new authors break out of the traditional publisher paradigm, but one downside is that it might make it harder to get some stuff, like in libraries.

Monica Cellio

@James I'll try to investigate it after Shabbat too; I didn't look around in the settings after we finished last night.

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 I consider 'traditional' libraries obsolete outside research

Monica Cellio

@JourneymanGeek Mac 10.8.5.

James

@MonicaCellio lol yeah probably 31 - 5 Nov sometime in there

Journeyman Geek

ah, I would be of no help there

James

14:28

mind you I haven't asked green and nex

DaaaahWhoosh

@James or Whoosh :(

James

You're not playing this time remember! :)

Journeyman Geek

If it was windows, I'd wonder if it considered vsee a communications program, which has different audio settings

Monica Cellio

@James Tue/Wed/Thur all work for me (Wed would be ideal). Have to check for conflicts Sat night/Sun. Friday night/Saturday day never work for me.

AndyD273

@JourneymanGeek I buy very few books, mostly because I don't really feel the need to own them, I just want the story in my head. It's rare for me to reread a book because there are just so many stories I haven't read yet. Libraries are great for that, and most of them have audiobook collections too. I pay $50 a year to get a membership at a out of state library with a big online book/audiobook collection. Saves me a bunch of money on Audible credits.

Monica Cellio

14:31

@JourneymanGeek oh yeah, I've sometimes seen some oddities with Lync on Windows at work -- headset plugged in but it doesn't detect it until you leave and rejoin the meeting, stuff like that. Last night was my first time using Vsee, or video anything on the Mac, so lots of things could need tweaking.

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 book stores are kinda one of the few sorts of stores I like

That said, I mostly buy ebooks these days

@AndyD273 I did say traditional

online books/audiobooks yeah

dead tree format... less so

Monica Cellio

I buy ebooks for fiction, but for anything that I'm not going to just read once through start to end, I prefer either paper or a well-constructed digital presentation. Reference works on an e-reader are a PITA for navigation and skimming.

That said, I just love reading books on my Kindle, because I can't change the font size on a dead-tree book. :-)

AndyD273

If I can't find a cheap audio version through a whispersync deal or whatever and need to resort to dead tree to get the story, the library is definitely the way to go.

Huh. So a long while back I acquired a pretty big ebook library, most of which I haven't really looked through. Turns out that those Wiz Biz books are in it. I probably would never have gotten around to looking at them without the recommendation. :)

Journeyman Geek

@MonicaCellio There's that

I tend to use a semi large font, which is nice

heh

@AndyD273 at some point I need to reorganise my ebook collection ._.

James

@MonicaCellio Roger.

AndreiROM

14:44

@JourneymanGeek LOL. Ebooks are the way to go :D

Monica Cellio

@AndyD273 yeah, most of them are in a Baen data dump that I got from somewhere. There are five books total and I had trouble finding the fifth. In hindsight, I recommend reading the first three.

AndyD273

@JourneymanGeek I use Calibre. Works really good, easy to add/edit book info, and does conversion between formats, in case your old .lit files need to be epub or mobi

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 I do too BUT it forces me to organise by author

I'd rather organise by series

AndreiROM

@AndyD273 I love that program. too bad it doesn't run on Android

Journeyman Geek

@MonicaCellio the baen cds were mostly older books

AndyD273

14:46

I guess that would be useful for things like Halo or whatever where you have a bunch of different authors

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 or where one author does more than one series

Larry Correia does... 3 or 4 distinct ones?

AndyD273

But if you tag them with the series info, you can look it up/sort it by that

Journeyman Geek

bleh

AndreiROM

@JourneymanGeek I just discovered this author after John Ringo (of my long time faves) did a book in his Monster Hunter universe

Journeyman Geek

@AndreiROM yup

I found Larry Correia first

Ironically due to piracy, resulting in... me owning most of the books he's written in one form or another

Monica Cellio

14:48

Got to go attend to some work. I'll be back later to pick up book recommendations from y'all. :-)

HDE 226868

@TimB If you want to post the meta question about Wikipedia, I have something of an answer ready.

Journeyman Geek

(someone DCCed me Monster Hunter iInternational on IRC)

AndreiROM

@JourneymanGeek I've just spent a lot more money than I should have on his monster hunter series

Journeyman Geek

@AndreiROM I might own multiple copies of most of them

AndreiROM

@JourneymanGeek could I get some of his ebooks off of you by any chance?

Journeyman Geek

14:49

@AndreiROM I don't really do piracy

Against SE rules and all that

If you don't have a baen account, I could toss you a book voucher tho

AndreiROM

didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, sorry

AndyD273

@JourneymanGeek Is that why it was ironic that you got them through piracy?

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 quite literally it was

"DUDE YOU GOTTA READ THIS"

so I did.

I believe at this point I own one physical copy of that book, a ebook copy and the anthology of the first three books

and well

I don't generally pirate books and video games

Buuut

This is more so with companies that don't do DRM

AndyD273

I used to a little in my wayward youth, but it's gotten way to easy to get stuff legitimately. Also I actually have a little money now, unlike then.

Journeyman Geek

I mean, a baen bundle is 18 usd for 6 books. Its less effort to buy the book than to find it online illegally

@AndyD273 well, I just put the money I'd typically spend in my late, lamented local bookstore to another source

I'd buy some stuff from amazon too if they would shut up and take my money, my debit card dosen't work there since my bank insists on CIC numbers

I bought the entire frontlines series by sneaking them in with my mom's romance novel purchases

AndyD273

15:02

@JourneymanGeek Could always go to a store and pick up a couple amazon gift cards. I've done that in the past when I've had a form of payment that didn't work on amazon.

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 never seen those in singapore

or I just ask my parents to get it for me then pay them back

since my mom gets me to order books for her, since she's not computer savvy

Tim B

@HDE226868 Ok

AndyD273

@JourneymanGeek Ah, yeah, I dunno about Singapore. A lot of the big box stores here have racks of gift cards for other stores/restaurants, including Amazon and Steam.

Journeyman Geek

@AndyD273 only seen google and apple here

Tim B

15:18

@HDE226868 Done

@PavelJanicek Nice little short story already :)

dot_Sp0T

15:35

@NexTerren JavaScript is the spawn of Satanas

HDE 226868

15:52

@TimB Awesome, thanks.

James

Anyone have a recommendation for a good newsfeed for android? The pre-installed one on my old HTC was great, it basically allowed you to pick your news by source. The new one on my Samsung has a bunch of garbage I don't care about...

dot_Sp0T

@James Yahoo Pipes + any RSS reader

Worldbuilding Meta

1

Q: How much should we accept Wikipedia (and similar sites) as a source?

The Tag Wiki for hard-science says: The answers should be based on current, undisputed science. This means no subjective sciences. Ideally, answers should be backed up by equations, relevant theories, and citations where possible - arXiv can be quite good for citations, though Wikipedia is us...

3

James

People should read this ^

thanks dot Ill check it out

Nex Terren

@James For a reader, I use Feedly. Great, simple interface, supports categories, understands "read" stories, syncs between the Android app and and the browser app, and is free.

Tim B

16:17

@HDE226868 Good answer, might be worth adding a short section at the end about changing the tag wiki too? Or do you think that should be a separate question?

James

16:37

@NexTerren Ill take a look :D

Durakken

Turtle

DaaaahWhoosh

goat

Durakken

Toad

Naming things with a made up language is hard

DaaaahWhoosh

that is the truth

though if you're the one making up the language, just pick a small number of phonemes, it'll cut down on the possible permutations

Durakken

Meh. That would be too easy and also leaves out sounds I like ^.^

But I've already started and I so am not going back to the beginning now ^.^

DaaaahWhoosh

16:48

I suggest you name a really cool animal 'Whoosh'

Durakken

I made a small webcomic using sprites like a decade ago where the ultimate power was something like that

I can't show a img... boooo

Hrmm Can anyone create new chat rooms?

Bellerophon

@Durakken I think you need 100 rep.

Durakken

I think I only have 2 rep!

HDE 226868

@TimB I added something about that at the end of my answer. We could make a second question if there's no consensus.

Durakken

17:03

"The answers should be based on current, undisputed science. This means no subjective scientific ideas." <- the problem with that is that is a very small list of things

HDE 226868

@Durakken How so?

Durakken

Big Bang. Disputed or not?

HDE 226868

Virtually undisputed.

Certainly not by mainstream scientists.

Durakken

It's semi-disputed... The facts say the matter/energy of the observable universe was closer together and all that, but there are disputes to things around this point, like was it a re-ocurring expansion and crunch or a phase shift or membranes

Each of those points end up with different things and people don't consider them as "the big bang"

HDE 226868

The specifics are, yes, but the idea of the Big Bang is not disputed. Nobody knows yet what the universe was like during the Planck Epoch, but that's not the major point of the theory.

Durakken

17:08

What about Micro-Evolution? Is that disputed? It's not so much disputed as it's a dumb concept... Evolution is evolution

HDE 226868

Branes, the Big Crunch, and the cyclic universe model are other issues on cosmology.

@Durakken I don't know enough about it to say.

People disagree over what the term means.

Might "mainstream" be a better substitution for "undisputed"?

Durakken

People who believe in micro-evolution don't believe in Macro-evolution... which is odd because people who believe in evolution full stop believe in both and make no distinction.

I think something like "accepted as a credible line of thinking? Experimentation? Theory?" is much better

For example, you can't talk about string theory without venturing into the realm of non-mainstream, undisputed, etc... Or super Symettry or any quantum stuff, but they are all credible lines of scientific whatever

TrEs-2b

howdy!

Durakken

howdy ho

TrEs-2b

Question for those of you more adept in Stack exchange

Durakken

17:13

So not me ^.^

TrEs-2b

What user has the highest question count

It's not like I want to end themand wear their skin or anything.... Just curious

Durakken

I don't think there is a way to get that info without running third party bot and running through all users

The devs probably didn't think anyone would think to ask that

HDE 226868

@TrEs-2b There's got to be a Data Explorer query for that. Searching.

DaaaahWhoosh

@HDE226868 I feel like I've written such a query before

HDE 226868

data.stackexchange.com/worldbuilding/query/33130/…

From meta.stackexchange.com/a/88158/274942

@DaaaahWhoosh I'm reasonably sure you have.

TrEs-2b

17:21

I just passed @SerbanTanasa as top scored asker, I have achieved god status!

Durakken

I've only asked like 16 questions blah

TrEs-2b

293

DaaaahWhoosh

wow, @TrEs-2b I thought you were more of an asker than an answerer

TrEs-2b

I answer when I feel like no others have addressed an idea I could

No more

no less

Durakken

I've answered like 117 times so far

DaaaahWhoosh

17:25

oooh, wait a minute

Durakken

on world builder anyways

DaaaahWhoosh

that query is backwards

Durakken

Everything thing is backwards

HDE 226868

@DaaaahWhoosh Nah, only the comment at the top.

> -- Most Prolific Answerers (with score)

Durakken

This is a mirror universe to your normally scheduled universe

HDE 226868

17:26

That should be

DaaaahWhoosh

but I only ever read the comments!

Tim B

@Durakken stack exchange releases regular database dumps and you can run arbitrary sql queries against it... so you can get the info officially as people demonstrated

HDE 226868

-- Most Prolific Askers (with score)

The query's code works; I can confirm that.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, it's for questions, and the numbers match up

Durakken

@TimB That's why I said "so probably not me" ^.^

You know what might be a good idea... a layman and expert tag

DaaaahWhoosh

17:29

@Durakken they shouldn't need to choose one or the other for each question

one should be assumed

data.stackexchange.com/worldbuilding/query/489021/…

now that's a query

Durakken

Well no if I'm an expert and don't need low level stuff explained and only want a succinct answer then I can say I'm looking for answers on an expert level which would iclude all the mathy stuff

If I need an expert level thing explained however I could include the layman tag and so the answer would be expected to be credible, but not use all the math and jargon, but explain it at a layman leven with layman concepts

DaaaahWhoosh

I think the layman tag is assumed for anything not using the hard-science tag

HDE 226868

@Durakken Then I'd advise stating that in the question. We already have too many meta-tags on Worldbuilding.

The Death of Meta Tags

Jeff Atwood on August 7, 2010

There are a few tags on Stack Overflow that have bugged me for a long time. Namely:

Durakken

Hard-science should be for just saying I want this to be based in hard reality and no wibbly wobbly stuff

For example, the question "is x organism possible" in a hard science tag, the answer would be no or yes and whether it is possible in the known universe using the known physics and known models...

HDE 226868

That sounds like using hard-science and reality-check.

Durakken

17:36

Where as leaving that off would be able to answer in "how it could be done" with the known universe pushed to the limits, but would never happen

HDE 226868

Isn't that an argument against a layman tag? As @DaaaahWhoosh said, that would be the case by default.

Durakken

No they'd work in conjunction

HDE 226868

Why do you need a separate tag, then?

Durakken

You can answer a hard science question with all the models, citation, and such or you can explain in general why it is. And likewise you can do the same without the hard science tag.

HDE 226868

It's unlikely that most people will do that, though.

That's why we need the hard-science tag - most people won't unless they're explicitly told so.

Durakken

17:41

Its just a thought. Tags are somewhat foolish to begin with because they require you to actually go through the list of tags and pick the right one

Most people probably don't go through the tag list and just guess and it just happens to be in there...or if not then they go look or give up

My bet is that a majority of reality-check tags are there only because they can't find an already created tag for the question they're asking

Serban Tanasa

@TrEs-2b Ahem, 293 > 120

Been busy last few months.

Durakken

18:01

When do chat rooms get deleted?

DaaaahWhoosh

22

A: How do you delete a room on chat?

Provided that the room had less than 15 messages or fewer than 2 users that posted, it will get deleted automatically if it is inactive for 7 days. You thus don't have to do anything (other than not post) to get it deleted. If you need to ensure deletion of a room you own, you could set the chat...

Durakken

thank you

DaaaahWhoosh

o7

DaaaahWhoosh

18:22

anyone here know how to navigate to URLs through other cities?

like, if I wanted to make sure people in that city could get to a web site, is that a thing that is possible?

Tim B

Huh?

via a proxy

is the only way if tyou can find one there

Durakken

cities?

DaaaahWhoosh

@Durakken yeah, there's a web application I'm monitoring, we have agents that test it periodically, there are ones in certain cities giving DNS errors

Durakken

Well... you can change your local DNS stuff so that a particular name goes to a specific IP by-passing non-local DNSs

Not sure if you can do that with an app or how to do it either way, but I know you can do it

James

medium.com/conquering-corporate-america/…

lol

TrEs-2b

18:49

2395 > 2267
Those last few questions I did on religion, communism and farming pushed me past even your question score

James

@TrEs-2b I keep forgetting to schedule your intervention...

TrEs-2b

Never! Unlimited Power! (Seriously though I am Insane)

James

...make that interventionS

TrEs-2b

@James do you happen to remember (the 5th of November but also) which answer of yours was the one where you talked about giant space net organisms?

AndyD273

That tickles a memory of some show or something...
"Heh. Yeah, I'm doing great! (I'm so lonely)"

James

18:54

@TrEs-2b are you sure that was me?

TrEs-2b

It may have been @JDługosz

Durakken

Blah... Ancient History is too long and "middle ages" doesn't really work off earth v.v

AndyD273

@TrEs-2b Is that the one where it was asking how they'd get around?

TrEs-2b

Can't remember the question, that's why I'm having trouble finding it, I just loved the concept

Durakken

Is there a generic way to break up history other than ancient, middle ages, and modern?

DaaaahWhoosh

18:56

'space net creature' comes up with this answer

James

That doesn't sound like something I'd answer...

DaaaahWhoosh

and this one

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh that's it thanks! (<-- Don't take that exclamation point to heart)

DaaaahWhoosh

@TrEs-2b :D :I :(

James

....make that three interventions

Durakken

18:58

We study orgies!

I mean origins

HDE 226868

Make that four interventions.

TrEs-2b

@James I'm not a pedophile on 'to catch a predator', I will not "have a seat"! I will run, run far far away (not the Shrek town, just the idiom)

Durakken

My cat will stop you

TrEs-2b

wait cat?

I'm listening

Durakken

My cat is a jerk

He doesn't do his job

Makes me to kill bugs before he attacks them v.v

2

TrEs-2b

19:00

Cats in general are pricks, but we love them

we love them

Durakken

Indeed

AndyD273

2

A: A zero gravity life form that harvests asteroids?

One way that it could spread is with something like a solar sail. The sail would be very big, and spun from the material harvested from the asteroids; Namely carbon, nickle, iron, etc. The solar sail would have a tether attached, which would be used to tow the lifeform around, and would look som...

Whoops, a little late

James

@TrEs-2b That would be an ass kicking not an intervention ;D

TrEs-2b

shhhhh, sleep sweet prince

Durakken

I'm trying to think of a way to divided you 7000 years of history into 3 ages divided into 3 sub-ages

And make it 3rd person universal ages rather than relative to the cutlure

AndyD273

19:10

@Durakken If they don't have to be equal periods of time you can break it up by major events; Like the first 2500 years are the rise and fall of the eastern empire. The next 1000 years are the lawless times, and the last 3500 years are the rise and stagnation of the second empire

ah, wait, I just got that second line... never mind

You'd probably want to go with geographic events then, like the eruption of a volcano, major earth quake, flood, etc. Something that would affect the all the civilizations and show up in a lot of histories.

meteor strike...

no one knows they are in a new age when it's happening. One day the ice begins to melt, and you're just happy that it's a little warmer. It's only a few thousand years later that people look back and say "And so the ice age ended"

2

JDługosz

@TrEs-2b hello.

Durakken

Well the thing is we divide up time into ancient, middle ages, and modern, because that's largely what we have in the west... but it should be divided more like a late roman would view it probably

DaaaahWhoosh

@JDługosz turns out it wasn't you

Tres was trying to think of an answer he read once

Durakken

The actual history of the world is ~10,000 years old with elves that live roughly 2-300 years and that makes for a really screwy development

I spent a month trying to figure out how the elves would spread across the continent only to find that my thoughts for how they would would take longer than what i had v.v and now I've just thrown that out since I found out that humans can spread very much faster

DaaaahWhoosh

is there a reason it's only 10k years old?

Durakken

19:23

It's arbitrary mostly but 10k is there because that is a good length of time for history generally.

James

You can always have pre-history that isn't documented existing beforehand...that's what I did

Durakken

But I'm working with the 10k year thing because changing it would mean i have to re-figure some other things out i don't wanna

This is for my personal knowledge at the moment. The first 3000 years is "pre-history"

Also technically the way the cosmos is set up here is that there is a "base time" which is the real length of time the universe has existed and then there is the in universe time. This worlds time is supposed to be syncronous with it's basetime

But Earth is also in the cosmos... and the BT for it starts ~10,000 years ago, but all things that happened before then technically didn't happen, but did in-universe

I'll figure out what to call it eventually, but because it's all wonky it's a bit difficult to come up with, but i suck with names in general so blah

AndyD273

Do you have a creation story? That would solve a lot of the problems. If the universe and everything was created 10,000 years ago, then nothing happened before that.

Durakken

Of course I do. Doesn't make it any less arbitrary ^.^

AndyD273

The first 3000 years were while everyone was sorting things out. Then some real civilization started to happen, and people started writing things down.

The next 3000 years are when civilization is growing, but there aren't a lot of people at first. And then someone decides that their neighbors resources look really nice, and so the first age ends and the age of war begins. This goes on for a while until someone gets big enough to dictate to everyone else, and the age of war ends and the age of the first empire begins...

Durakken

19:37

Technically the cosmos has no age and extends infinitely in the past and future... inside that are beings that have worlds in them which work on their own time ^.^ but the world I'm working with is a layer below that too

DaaaahWhoosh

THE AGE OF WAR

Durakken

The age of Pantsu!

AndyD273

@Durakken It's a silly age. Hopefully they'll grow out of it soon.

Durakken

Maybe

The problem with that is that the world isn't unified like that. I'm dealing with several cultures all advancing on their own timelines... My end goal is to make the present day roughly equivalent to the middle ages in a number of ways with maybe some equivalency to the modern world via magic

Speaking of someone should really ask a question like "What technologies might not be invented with magic and magical items being normal"

I think that computers probably never would have been invented, because you'd have a lot of the equivalent abilities in magical items ^.^

AndyD273

So one question to ask is "who's making the histories". We have our "western history" like you mention, but that's mostly because we're western and we made our histories. A Roman in the past would have a very Roman viewpoint of history.
if that makes any sense.

@Durakken I think that depends on how magic works. There are a lot of magic system questions on WB.

Durakken

19:47

That's the problem. I'm trying to come up with generic names for me to use to reference but disconnected from their view of history...

AndyD273

So you have to figure out how it works, and set the rules, and then work inside of those. I usually refer people to Sanderson's 3 laws of magic.

Durakken

Largely so I can loosely reference real history to know where it should be

AndyD273

Well, if there are gods, then you could use their viewpoint to make your history.

Someone on the ground is going to see just the events that impact them, while someone that is above it all and can see the big picture is going to see bigger events.

So a lot of the little stuff like the fall of Rome isn't going to amount to much more than a footnote, while the beginning of a global ice age is something to make a note of.

Durakken

Well I suppose the problem is that I don't have the history planned out yet, only a goal of making the world semi-medieval

Trying to figure this out in accordance to the views of the Elves would be very hard ^.^ So I'm leaving that mostly alone

AndyD273

So if you write down a time line, set a couple major global events: Chicxulub impact, end of ice age, invention of the paperclip. And then image how each of those events would impact each of the major civilzations. If Chicxulub hit in this geographical area, this group would be the most impacted, but this other group is at a higher latitude and so would be harder hit by the following ice age, etc.

Durakken

19:58

There are 4 main elf groups, 1 views history as worthless so doesn't record it at all, one views opinion as part of good history, 1 views what their religious text says is history is history absolutely... The 4th seems simple but when you think it through becomes crazy, because they believe knowledge is power so they try to maintain their ally history files pure, while currupting everyone elses

I haven't even gotten into all the other races yet so >.> yeah

hrmm... interesting way to do it. I'll consider that ^.^

AndyD273

This other civilization has better iron mines, and so discovers paper clip technology much earlier, allowing them to become much more organized. This leads to a golden age of learning, rocketing them 30 years ahead of their neighbors in the areas of committee management and tactical warfare (for some reason).

DaaaahWhoosh

20:37

@AndyD273 it also brings them much closer to being destroyed by an out-of-control AI

2 hours later…

Serban Tanasa

22:34

In other news. .... CIV VI!!!!!!

Tim B

22:56

Is it good? Think8ng of getting it

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