The Factory Floor

BESW

00:46

A thread about worldbuilding (yes another one) or: why wordbuilders should read world history by me, a humble Twitter trashcan

Tweeted by ellle_em on January 25, 2018 at 8:42 PM

Shalvenay

uh...why do people insist on abusing twitter in a threaded fashion?

BESW

@SCPilot Relephant essay: But, but, but — WHY does magic have to make sense? by NK Jemisin. (contains some harsh language)

SCPilot

Actually the quotes came from the Dragonstar tabletop rulebook.

Ferret Civilization

Read world history, forget conservation of detail. Ha heh.

SCPilot

It's weird that you posted that why does magic have to make sense article since the quotes actually came from a D&D sourcebook. So, in other words, D&D which has a system to make magic make sense has a quote that says magic gives science and technology the middle finger.

Ferret Civilization

01:00

It's meta for the player, Wizards by the Coast playing hardcore.

Shalvenay

@BESW interestingly enough -- how much sense your magic needs to make depends on what your setting is being used for

SCPilot

Yep. My thoughts exactly. Although, if you really want to get hardcore, try Tékumel.

Shalvenay

if your setting is supporting a single story and then getting thrown out basically, it can basically can just do whatever it needs to to support that story

if your setting is supporting something broader though, you need to make it more systematic, otherwise it becomes a maintainability problem (in the same way a big ball of software mud becomes a maintainability problem)

BESW

In the decades of D&D material you can cherry-pick quotes to support nearly any statement. Jemisin's talking about the impact of D&D on popular culture trends, which goes largely unaffected by any particular edge case.

SCPilot

That's true. I mean look at the references of D&D in Ready Player One.

BESW

01:07

(The Empire of the Petal Throne setting pre-dates RPGs, was published as an RPG independently of D&D, and is credited as an influential source for D&D at least as much as the other way around.)

Ferret Civilization

When you can go deeper and see the references of The Lord of the Rings in D&D.

BESW

Eh, D&D doesn't do a lot with LotR directly. It drew just as much if not more from other material like Three Hearts and Three Lions and Hammer films. A lot of the parallels with LotR come from using other sources which drew inspiration from the same sources that Tolkien drew on.

SCPilot

Hm....I see. I was unaware that the Empire of the Petal Throne pre-dated RPGs. I had figured that it had come about just as D&D was starting out.

It was designed by a college professor.

BESW

Tékumel as a setting was originally thought of by that college professor in his teenage years. It dates from the 40s.

Ferret Civilization

@BESW Almost got the meaning of my comment, have to keep going deeper though.

SCPilot

01:12

I see. Interesting. I've read some of it, and it seems to be quite an unique setting, given that it doesn't use Western European characteristics and features. Instead, using Indian, South American (Inca, Mayan, Aztec), and Ancient Persian characteristics.

BESW

@FerretCivilization Then I probably didn't understand what your "when" is referring to. If you're interested in the conversation you'll have to put in the effort to clarify the miscommunication rather than simply leave the burden of interpretation as an exercise for others.

Shalvenay

@SCPilot yeah, but it also has quite a bit of the infelicity that a setting that tries to fuse multiple S. American cultures together + many, many apprentice marks of the era of its genesis

2

at least, that's my indirect understanding of it

2

SCPilot

I see.

BESW

@SCPilot I'm curious about it, but skeptical as to the implementation for reasons Shalv touches on above. It looks like a sincere effort to challenge popular contemporary colonial and stereotypical assumptions in specfic, but it also looks, from a distance, like it may not have been able to divest itself entirely of those assumptions.

SCPilot

Hm....Well, it was something of a science fantasy setting.

And I think it did try to challenge those assumptions.

BESW

01:17

@SCPilot Hence "specfic." We don't have a non-awkward phrase yet for works that paper over the vast spectrum between fantasy and scifi.

Ferret Civilization

@BESW It was mostly just a humor thing coming from when Pilot said you can see references of D&D in Ready Player One. If you take a step back you can see references of LoTR in D&D. Keep stepping back and going deeper you can go all the way back to the source material. Though you could also look at what it means going forward, as nothing is unique anymore, it just has unique spins, and one can start looking 'left' or 'right' at other things that come out in a same time period based on 1 thing

SCPilot

Well, in a way, anything modern pop culture has references to something that helped create popular culture.

BESW

@SCPilot If you're interested in that sort of thing, I highly recommend Jemisin's "Broken Earth" series, and Leckie's "Imperial Radch" series.

3

SCPilot

Hm...I see. Are they good?

BESW

One's fantasy, one's scifi, both do a great job of pushing against "traditional" worldbuilding and making something familiar and new. And they're both awesome just on the basis of the story, characters, writing, and setting.

Shalvenay

01:22

@BESW actually, can you define what "traditional" worldbuilding is for the purpose of your statement? not sure what pieces-parts of it you're saying they're pushing against

SCPilot

Well, the Dragonstar setting basically has it where there's an intergalatic empire ruled by dragons (chromatic and metallic). Oh boy. Well, now that I think about it, if anyone could effectively and efficiently run a powerful galaxy spanning empire, it would be a dragon......or a Sith Lord.

BESW

Jemisin talks here about creating the people in the Broken Earth setting, and beginning with the goal of making them people rather than faceless groups, while keeping them independent of real-world analogies or stereotypes.

And Leckie does some fascinating stuff with challenging common ways that scifi depicts "conquering empires" and cultural assimilation, while also digging into mind/body identity questions using very classical scifi tools of exaggerating a real-world situation to a logical extreme with invented science.

As someone who grew up in the grey area of colonialism, the Imperial Radch felt familiar and real and identifiable in ways that I'd never seen in scifi before.

Tekumel (and to some extent Culture) reminds me of both Jemisin and Leckie in how it strives to discuss real-world problems in speculative fiction through the lens of fictional cultures and distant futures--but Tekumel is... less distant than maybe it needed to be with the cultures it was deriving, without being close enough to the reality it was trying to allegorize.

Compare Okorafor's Lagoon, which doesn't allegorize at all but rather plops a fantastic premise into a fraught contemporary real-world situation and uses its aliens to give the social and conceptual conflicts of Lagos a literal, physical expression.

Future Historian

01:45

I am back.

So, basically......that is the weirdest thing I have ever made.

SCPilot

Well, I have to run now. Library is closing for the night. BTW, out of curiosity, does anyone else's library close at 9 PM on Thursdays?

Ferret Civilization

9 PM, damn around where I have lived they close at 5 PM at the latest.

SCPilot

It's only on Thursdays that they're open till 9 PM. The rest of the week closing time is 6 PM, except on Saturdays where they're opened until 2 PM. My library opens at 10 AM. And they're closed of course on Sundays.

Future Historian

@FerretCivilization? Visitors look better yet?

Ferret Civilization

Huh, interesting, you know why it is 9 PM only on Thursdays?

@FutureHistorian And yeah they are looking better, ha.

Future Historian

01:53

So far.......weird.

Especially their biological functions and reproductive system + life cycle.

kingledion

02:14

@James I was going to vote to re-open this question, since it seems fine (and funny?) to me.

165

Q: What is the least "world changing" reason why the government would pay for you to keep a llama during your 44th year of life?

I want to make a short story about an Earth just like ours except it's commonly accepted that at the age of 43, the government allows people to have a llama in their house and the government pays for the llama and the food during that year and that year only. Most people just have a Llama day whe...

Honestly, why did you close it

Shalvenay

hey there @kingledion

James

05:59

@kingledion Its off topic like three different ways.

Secret

09:08

washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/01/25/…

It's 2 minutes til midnight

newscientist.com/article/…

Civillisations are predicted to collapse by 2020

Ferret Civilization

I remember the good old days when it was suppose to be 2000

Secret

nkjemisin.com/2012/06/…

If that is a good guide, then I definitely have came up the closest thing he will consider as magic when we discussed about the notion of abstract magic, the extreme limit of the true magics

(NB short recap: True magic is something that explicitly violates Clark's 3rd Law, thus it is almost the same idea as what this blogger is whining about)

so far we only have words to describe two classes of them, but there might be more, forever unreachable and uncomprehendable by the human mind

> Eric
June 15, 2012 • 2:31 pm
I appreciate the sentiment, but I can really only meet you halfway. Without limitations, magic can be largely indistinguishable from Deus Ex Machina.

I think people crave understanding, regardless of the genre. Part of what is exceptional about magic is that it solves a great deal of problems, but is in the end a tool in itself. A blast of fire solves the problems of protection and warmth for a spellcaster, but you’ll need to take me on a story to explain how he uses it to catch his dinner or boil water, and -that’s- the interesting part. Stories need conflic…

I think it will be interesting to think about a narrative style where the notion of unknown is a central element of the plot, such that the story still flows sublimely without the reader have to understand what is going on, and just feel it, and said unknown is never fully resolved

that is, a story about the unknown itself

There might be examples already, need to check...

10 hours ago, by SCPilot

“technology lets us harness the laws of nature; magic allows us to break them" Science discovers the rules, technology uses them, and magic breaks them.

@SCPilot The issue of this definition is that we don't know where the boundary is for technology

and we knew that for science, when things break, models were simply updated to include the thing that seemed to be an exception

I don't know how one can envision a phenomenon that the models cannot describe, and no more general model exists for it

If such a phenomenon can exist (what exist means is a matter of complicated philosophy which for simplicity I will just resort to classical logic), then that phenomenon will be magic since there exists no scientific models that can describe it

that is, if some phenomenon A, under classical logic, which satisfies the requirement that given any scientific model M that already described a collection of phenomena S, there exists no extensions or generalisation N such that N describes A, then A is by definition a (true) magical phenomenon

Secret

10:02

in The h Bar, 46 secs ago, by Slereah

You can always enlarge a model to accomodate new data

which is why it might be impossible for a human to envision true magic (even mine is only a guess on what it might be look like by basically rambling with half baked philosophy understanding...)

in The h Bar, 26 secs ago, by Slereah

Since we can only produce a finite amount of experimental data and you can always put the results of those experiments as axioms you can just construct a theory for any set of observation

Perhaps we can say, a set of phenomena such that the only model is one which uses the occurence of those phenomena as axioms will be the closest thing to what magic is like that is independent of technology

princeton.edu/~hhalvors/teaching/phi520_f2012/putnam-craig.pdf

see this link shared by Slereah for details. So yes, we might not be able to envision true magic, but we can get something close to it in a practical sense

> Every theory that admits a recursively enumerable set of axioms can be recursively axiomatized

now that puts a whole new level on what infinity magic could possibly mean

Idea: One can potentially envision a magic that scramble experimental outcomes such that no meaningful information can be extracted from the resulting data, or make the computers that do the calculations to not halt or simply break down whenever it tries to do said calculation

A magic that screws with any steps of the scientific method will be practically speaking violating Clark's 3rd law, because it is basically a magic that actively prevent science from peering into it

logically speaking, however it may not because it could be that there really exists technology that can be compatible with it, but the universe conspires in a way such that this can never be shown, hence making Clark's Law vacuously true for such case

Secespitus

10:19

I don't have the time to read through your stuff right now @Secret, but have you ever thought about writing a blog article for Universe Factory? A discussion of your ideas about magic would surely be appreciated as a blog post as there are lots of different topics.

There are worldbuilding How-To's, short stories, analysis of previous posts, ...

Secret

Sounds nice, checking out now (did not knew blogs exist in SE since they don't in PSE and MSE). I might have enough material to actually wrote a short essay on what I think magic is and what I (and the chat) knew so far

Secespitus

@Secret It's not an official blog and this month not much is happening (start of the year is a bit slow). There is a dedicated chatroom and there are messages in the chat (this and the linked one) when a post is published. The links are also featured a week on the main site (on the right side) so that you would get some exposure.

Secret

That's nice, I wish other SE have similar systems...

Secespitus

SFF has one

Future Historian

10:49

@Secespitus? Did you see the updated Visitor concept art?

Secespitus

11:41

@FutureHistorian No and I currently don't have the time to take a closer look and comment on it.

Future Historian

15:58

:(

Future Historian

16:09

@AndyD273? Here is one curious question: what special circumstances do either of our species need to live on Earth?

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian I don't know if I understand the question?

Future Historian

Do any of our two species need something like an EVA suit or something?

To survive on Earth?

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian Mine doesn't. It just needs a cool, dark place out of the sun, and a warm body to reproduce in.

Future Historian

Hmmmmmm.

I am going to guess mine do not need some EVA suit, but they would still need to terraform Earth by introducing their own crops if they wanted to colonise it.

AndyD273

Earths atmosphere is very similar to it's own home. Little less CO2 actually because of fewer volcanoes.

Future Historian

16:13

And considering that Kepler 442b is 1.28 Earth gees vs Earth's 1 Earth gee, they would need to have something to compensate for lower gravity..........unless.......

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian Lower gravity isn't really a problem. It would just make them stronger here. Higher gravity is a problem

Future Historian

Good point.

AndyD273

So we may have trouble if we ever went that way

Future Historian

Not to mention faster than on their planet.

They are fast by Kepler 442b standards and even faster in Earth standards.

Right?

At least Earth has no sulphuric acid rain to the extent Kepler 442b has.

AndyD273

Sounds right. Someone from Earth going to Mars would be in a similar situation

Future Historian

16:17

Well, a human vs a Visitor in hand to hand combat = RIP Human.

I wonder how, though.

Bellerophon

@AndyD273 It is a problem long-term. It would increase the likelihood of obesity and they would really struggle if they went home.

Future Historian

Would it just be physically stronger than a human or does that set of outer jaws mean the human has zero chance of defeating it?

AndyD273

I wonder if their crops might need more sulphur to thrive...

Future Historian

Probab-. Wait.

Bellerophon

@AndyD273 They could just use a sulphur rich fertiliser.

Future Historian

16:18

So..........if the humans are dead, they are free to terraform Earth by adding more sulphuric acid to plant their crops.

Or that is an option........

@AndyD273? If the unfriendly Visitors win that final battle after exterminating us and they colonise Earth, how would Earth as a Visitor colony be different 37,000 years later?

In terms of atmosphere and biosphere?

AndyD273

@Bellerophon I totally get the struggle with going home, as their muscles would adapt to the lower gravity and not be prepared for the high gravity, but I've never heard of lower gravity being a contributing factor to obesity? I cant even find any references to studies done on obesity in microgravity.

Future Historian

Because if they plant their crops and they need more sulphur dioxide, would that mean they would have to terraform Earth?

By destroying our current biosphere more than we already did and replacing it with their own?

Bellerophon

@AndyD273 You use less energy to do stuff when in lower/micro gravity. Assuming you eat a similar diet and have a similar life style you would gain weight.

AndyD273

Maybe they would try to trigger more volcanoes? Set off the Yellowstone super volcano maybe? That might even make for a good first strike target if they want to wipe us out.

Future Historian

Except they had to wait for 10 years to kill us, and only because of a literal scorched Earth policy implementation.

AndyD273

16:26

@Bellerophon Ok, that makes sense, but the problem is still easyish to avoid; don't eat much junk. Which might not be all that hard if you have control over the food supply. It's hard to stop by the corner store for a candy bar on mars

@FutureHistorian So not first strike then, more final solution

Bellerophon

@AndyD273 Agreed, I was assuming a species that was coming to Earth to live here.

Future Historian

So, to help get things started, a kinetic rod could be set to impact Yellowstone and kickstart the process, with a bioweapon to finish off the surviving humans after that.

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian Last I heard, humanity was going to get a chance to fight back, and eventually drive the visitors off. That not happening any more?

Future Historian

By 2034/2037 (both old and new canon), there are still 2.1 billion human survivors from the initial Invasion, which killed 3.9 billion out of 8.3 billion, while billions more died of other factors.

@AndyD273. The Resistance will still become a threat over time, but the Visitors choose to take action preemptively once a group of friendly Visitors tries to save our arses.......by the time they arrive into the Solar System, it is already too late.

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian So they decide to wipe out humanity with scorched earth, but leave almost half alive?

sorry, a quarter

@Bellerophon I gotcha now.

James

18:07

Afternoon peoples

I feel like this question is OT...its a cool idea but there needs to be more for it to be answered. I don't feel like mod-hammering it though.

0

Q: blood of elementals

My writing is centred around elements, and just to clarify i'm using darkness, fire, metal/stone, earth/life, water, air, ice and light. There are eight elemental races which correspond to these. If the blood of, say, a light elemental was taken and put into a dark elemental's bloodstream, what w...

biology magic humans blood classical-elements

kingledion

18:24

@James Its pretty hopelessly underspecified.

I didn't think elementals even had blood.

I think he might be imagining that each 'elemental' is a sub-race of humans/humanoids. Sort of how elves and dwarves and orcs and such can all interbreed in your generic D&D fantasy setting.

AndyD273

18:41

@James So you know the movie "Taken", where the dad is giving the speech to his daughter just before she is taken? I sorta kinda want to come up with a version for questions like that... "Listen to me clearly, you are about to be put on hold. Do not panic. You can fix this..."

AndyD273

18:51

@ajnatorixzersolar Hows it going?

ajnatorix zersolar

thank you for sending the link

@kingledion

@kingledion yes you are correct they are humanoid

AndyD273

@ajnatorixzersolar Yup. It took me a little while to find when I first started. Few pointers. You can ping someone by using the @ symbol and their username. Each message will have a little arrow on the right side when you mouse over it that lets you reply to that message and link them together.

Which is seems you discovered, so good job!

ajnatorix zersolar

@AndyD273 apart from the link how do you get here from the question site (i have the unanswered question page set in my favourites so thats where i start)

James

@AndyD273 lol

AndyD273

kingledion

18:58

@ajnatorixzersolar From the Worldbuilding home page (here), click on the far right icon on the top bar; which looks like ...

Ah, pictures, they are worth a thousand words. Good job @AndyD273

ajnatorix zersolar

thanks

kingledion

@ajnatorixzersolar Hey I took a look at your question again. The problem with answering it is that we don't know how those 'elemental energies' in each creature's blood work.

AndyD273

Yup!

kingledion

If I mix light energy and darkness energy, what happens?

What about if I mix Fire and water energy? Do I get steam, or what happens

So if we don't know how they work together, we can't really help you with your question.

AndyD273

But the good news is that once you figure that out, you've pretty much answered you question. Are you looking for ideas of what may happen if they mix?

ajnatorix zersolar

19:01

1)they cancel each other out 2)they react with a kind of fizzle (i love that word) or three they cant come close to each other, sort of like opposing magnets

kingledion

@AndyD273 Listen to me very carefully. I don't know who you are, and I don't understand your question. If you want me to cast a re-open vote, I don't have the rep to do that. But what I do have is a very particular set of skills. Skills that I have acquired over a long career on other SE sites...

4

I'm not sure where to go from there

AndyD273

@kingledion nice

ajnatorix zersolar

the elements are paired, darkness with light, fire with ice, metal with air and earth with water. strength in that order. fire is equal with ice but will be weak to dark and so on. also the elementals dont have the power to combine elements as each elemental has one element.

AndyD273

@ajnatorixzersolar so 1) blood transfusion occurs, nothing much happens, but their energy does get weaker. 2) blood transfusion occurs, there is a reaction, possibly leading to death. 3) blood transfusion happens, energies do not mix, but the alien energy disrupts the system. Maybe it finds a way to escape the body, or it causes death.

ajnatorix zersolar

@AndyD273 for 2 could that cause pain?

AndyD273

19:06

@ajnatorixzersolar Oh I'm sure. Having your blood start to fizzle sounds like a bad thing.

I'm sure 3 could lead to pain too.

Unless doctors have a way to allow the foreign energy to escape

ajnatorix zersolar

yes fizzleing blood sound like what divers get when they surface to fast

AndyD273

It is probably a lot like how human blood transfusions work. You want to find someone with the same blood type, or one that is compatible. In your case, you'd want the same energy, or one that least to 1) as a second choice.

ajnatorix zersolar

i think i will use that

AndyD273

So a light/dark transfusion would weaken the energy of the recipient, but not kill them. Of course it would be best to find a light doner

ajnatorix zersolar

i suppose for transfusions blood is blood, whether or not the element is the same dictates whether its healing or torture

Future Historian

19:10

@AndyD273. To answer your question: incorrect.

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian What was my question?

Future Historian

The scorched Earth policy is implemented against the remaining 2.1 billion humans, not all of humanity prior to the Invasion.

AndyD273

@ajnatorixzersolar That makes a lot of sense.

Future Historian

So, this is more to finish us off.

And not because they want to.

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian So are there any survivors to make a resistance?

Future Historian

19:11

It is basically “if I cannot have this species conquered, no one shall.”

AndyD273

I lost track of your plot a while back.

Future Historian

@AndyD273. That happens AFTER the Resistance is already a thing for 10 years.

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian So the aliens win. The end.

Future Historian

Remember: 10 years of guerrilla war on Earth + friendly Visitors try to save us = scorched Earth (literally).

So, yes. They win.

But the GPI is non-existent since humans are extinct.

ajnatorix zersolar

@kingledion you said you have a particular set of skills, sorry, i'm a curious person, but what are they?

AndyD273

19:15

@ajnatorixzersolar It was a joke based on a comment I made:

33 mins ago, by AndyD273

@James So you know the movie "Taken", where the dad is giving the speech to his daughter just before she is taken? I sorta kinda want to come up with a version for questions like that... "Listen to me clearly, you are about to be put on hold. Do not panic. You can fix this..."

And @kingledion just made it better

ajnatorix zersolar

ohhh, i haven't seen the film so that's why i didn't get it

AndyD273

Taken Phone Speech [HD]

►

ajnatorix zersolar

ok

AndyD273

So does that mostly answer that question, or do you have other thoughts?

ajnatorix zersolar

sorry, which question?

AndyD273

19:19

The blood types

ajnatorix zersolar

right, yes it does. but it is one small part. i will almost certainly have more questions on the site in the future, but thanks for the help everyone

AndyD273

@FutureHistorian Ok. A story with a hopeless ending can be good once in a while.

Future Historian

AndyD273

@ajnatorixzersolar Yup. If you have questions about if a question will be well received down the road you can either come in here and ask it first, or we have a sandbox where you can get feedback on a question before posting it "live", at least until you get the hang of what makes for a "good" question.

27

Q: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

In order to make the Sandbox easier to use, a new Sandbox question will be posted when the old one becomes too full. This Sandbox is currently active. You can check here for the full list of past and present Question Sandboxes. What is the Sandbox? This "Sandbox" is a place where Worldbuildin...

discussion questions sandbox

Or do both

Anyway, I'm gonna take off for a while. I may be back on later. Otherwise, have a great weekend everyone!

ajnatorix zersolar

where is the sandbox?

Future Historian

19:42

@AndyD273. Not completely hopeless.

37,000 years later, the Visitors in Ross 248 by then actually locate the Voyager 2 probe and then find out how to play the Golden Record as the epilogue.

@FerretCivilization? Did you see the Leviathan?

It is basically a semi-modular spacecraft with a structure surrounding built-in modules, except for the rotating habitats.

Ferret Civilization

Okay

Mithrandir24601

22:00

@BESW gives a ton of imaginary stars Yes. So much yes

Shalvenay

23:20

hey there @Mithrandir24601 and @Gryphon

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