Proposal: A Collaborative Science Fiction Universe

[Thanksforallthefish]

Long ago, we had several Collaborative World Projects in this subforum. We built several (mostly) realistic worlds with all its geography, climate, enviroments, wildlife and history, though we often stopped short at the history part. It was a lot of fun.

Back then I wanted also to do a science fiction collaborative universe, where we could make a world with its own history, tech, alien species, planets, and so on. Unfortunately the thread fizzled out and there haven't been many collaborative projects since.

So I got nostalgic and decided to change that.

Let's build a science fiction universe! Usually, we start with a map (and depending on the scale we might need different kinds of maps) but we will build it piece by piece, debating concepts and introducing new stuff until we have something really nice and community built! Who knows, maybe it could become the next big AH.com TL!

Let's start by deciding the setting and scale of our universe, since there are many kinds of science fiction. Once we decide that, we can hammer the details in a proper thread, but by all means, feel free to propose stuff here already!

Here are the options:

Space Opera
Scale: Interstellar to Galactic (maybe even intergalactic)

You know this one. Armadas of great interstellar empires decide the future of the galaxy, there are plenty of different alien races yet humanlike enough to drink with them in seedy space bars, faster-than-light travel is available even for small tramp traders, lots of intrigue, diplomacy, war and trade, and often influenced by larger-than-life characters. Normally space operas play fast and loose with scientific rigor, but we can do anything from something stretching the line into space fantasy like Star Wars to something that pays more attention to real-life science like older science fiction novels or some of Star Trek.

Examples: Star Wars, Star Trek, many classical science fiction novels (Foundation, Dune)

Hard Science Fiction
Scale: Interplanetary to Galactic

In hard science fiction we'll do our best to only use technologies that can be done in the real world or at least justified by hard science. Aliens, if they appear, are really alien and the product of a totally different evolution from Earth life. Technologies and spaceships are designed with realism in mind; there can be a couple exceptions (for example, if we REALLY want FTL we can use some of the most realistic wormhole designs), but a couple, nothing more. Normally hard sci-fi is set into our own future but it can easily be done in an alternate timeline. The scale can also vary; hard science fiction can be also about a near future world with the first steps across the Solar System, or an expansive interestellar civilization with terraformed worlds and giant habitats.

Examples: The Expanse, Planetes, Orion's Arm (for something more grand-scale)

Cyberpunk
Scale: Planetary to Interplanetary

The focus of Cyberpunk is of course on digital technology, artificial intelligence, human augumentation, and a discussion of their effects on society, and it often takes a dystopian bent though it's not necessary. It its mostly realistic, but more 'out-there' technologies and concepts can be thrown, even fantasy elements. It's a world that can be even drawn in a single world map, set either Twenty Minutes Into The Future (our own future) or maybe in an alternate timeline where, for example 80s Japan kept growing to be a superpower, or many such options. If we feel like it, we can add things like Biopunk to the mix.

Examples: Blade Runner, Ghost In The Shell, Shadowrun

Post-Apocalyptic
Scale: Planetary, maybe continental or local

Maybe it was a world war, a plague, alien invasion, or an AI uprising, but the old world is now gone and new societies have risen from the ashes. Post-apocalyptic worlds can be as varied as the disasters that created it, and it can have tones from the dystopian to the healing. As for technology, it can be as realistic and gritty as what we have now (though at one point, it becomes just alternate history...) or mad science like Fallout, or even crazier alien or AI tech assuming they destroyed the world as we know it.

Examples: Fallout, The Matrix (in 'the real world'), Half-Life.

Science Fantasy
Scale: Planetary to Galactic

This actually encompasses a lot of different works, that unlike Space Opera that can have supernatural elements on the side, it's put in front and center; actual gods exist and are directly involved in space civilizations... or are incomprehensible eldritch abominations... space travel is available by magical means, there are cosmic powers vaguely explained by science-sounding words (the important thing is that it's INTERNALLY consistent), and realism is politely put aside for awesome battles with cosmic powers in desert worlds with scantily clad princesses. Looks like a mess but it can be really, really fun in a consistent, well built universe.

Examples: Warhammer 40K, the 'cosmic horror' genre, the 'Sword-And-Planet' genre.

Think I forgot something like say mecha or steampunk or your favorite subgenre? Feel free to propose it in the thread and if it sounds cool enough we'll consider it!

This poll closes in a week. Then I'll open a thread and we can start worldbuilding! In the meantime feel free to comment and propose your ideas!

 

[XFE]

I'd love to sign up. I'm definitely more partial to the cosmic horror genre; that said I feel as in the case of The Expanse, it could be interesting to merge the more fantastical side of scifi with hard, grounded science. Other mixing and matching would be really really fun.

Anyhow, really looking forward to how this goes! How will we be communicating in working on the project? By discord mayhaps?

 

[MittleGittle]

I’d like to poke around and give some suggestions, with slightly science based technology and aliens!
Hope it will be on Discord.

 

[Fox-Fire]

I have come across your other projects and thus I know that this Project is not only in Good hands, but in great ones.

I’m more partial to the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre, though the typical examples that people always have given about the genre always fail to scratch the certain itch I have about it. So, as many people have said before me, and I join their voices, write what you want to read. So, that’s what I plan to do if the project follows in that direction.

The kind of thing I’m searching for is the one that follows a few principles:

• Science is completely true until the threshold where it isn’t.
• Mankind is creative, mankind is productive, mankind iterates and extrapolates until there are no further ways of taking the same piece of technology further, for it has fallen behind in effectiveness. Behind the discoveries made in the process of extrapolating.
• Only then mankind adds B into A’s extrapolations and iterations.
• Logic still applies and it permeates every piece of technology, magic and its components. Example, mechs do not wear giant shields of Adamantium/Unobtanium because they can be made of those materials instead. Ships might look like futuristic sleek jets, though only if they are intra-atmospheric. If not, a cube covered in exhausts on all sides is a better ship, even if you can magic away inertia and accelerate to FTL speeds.

Anyway, when you finish cringing about what I just wrote, let me present a solution to most problems that plague “Magic” Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

“Magic” isn’t really a supernatural thing, it’s a fundamental force just like the other four we already know, the only difference is that magic doesn’t respond to normally, or easily, quantifiable things, such as mass, inertia and so on and so forth. Instead, it answers the diverse types of emergent properties: conscience, intelligence, emotions, feelings, comprehension, etc. Magic might respond to the “soul” of things, from the barely conscious about themselves, to the largest type III civilizations contained within uncountable numbers of Matryoshka Brains. Or discard souls and put emergent properties in the same place. Or just use both and have scientists break their heads on why they cannot find a grand unified theory like in our current understanding of the universe. You know, like gravity and the quantum world don’t like mixing.

You can make that relation be non-linear. People so often forget about that.

Let a soul/emergent property be a base value of 1, then their magical capacity would be of 1. Twice that, a soul of 2 (insert magic counting unit here), like a novice space-wizard, and their power is 4. Half of that, a soul of 0,5, say, a loyal and intelligent creature-companion, their power is 0,25.

If you don’t like that, well, there are many other mathematical relations we can play with.

 

[dakkafex]

I've written hard(-ish) SF and cyberpunk, and I feel like hard-SF in particular is great for forcing me to come up with more interesting and creative ways to do things and make the overall setting 'work', instead of just using handwave magitech to explain everything away, so I'd throw down a vote for something in that direction. Obviously any sort of project will evolve over time, and starting with a predefined set of tropes is a great way to wind up with a cliché paint-by-numbers work, but at the very least I'd find a more 'grounded' approach to be most interesting.

 

[Fox-Fire]

I like Hard Sci-Fi too. However, I always go back to the Third Law's corollary for all my Sci-Fi and Fantasy worlds: "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science".

 

[Thanksforallthefish]

I'd love to sign up. I'm definitely more partial to the cosmic horror genre; that said I feel as in the case of The Expanse, it could be interesting to merge the more fantastical side of scifi with hard, grounded science. Other mixing and matching would be really really fun.

Anyhow, really looking forward to how this goes! How will we be communicating in working on the project? By discord mayhaps?

Yes of course! The settings are mostly as a guideline to start, at the end we will mix and match what we think works best.

It would be really interesting to have a setting where everything is realistic and 'hard' as possible, with the exception of certain supernatural stuff.

I'm not too used to discord, but I do have it and if this picks up interest I will open a server.

I’d like to poke around and give some suggestions, with slightly science based technology and aliens!
Hope it will be on Discord.

Nice! Anything is welcome, hope you stick around!

I have come across your other projects and thus I know that this Project is not only in Good hands, but in great ones.

I’m more partial to the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre, though the typical examples that people always have given about the genre always fail to scratch the certain itch I have about it. So, as many people have said before me, and I join their voices, write what you want to read. So, that’s what I plan to do if the project follows in that direction.

The kind of thing I’m searching for is the one that follows a few principles:

• Science is completely true until the threshold where it isn’t.
• Mankind is creative, mankind is productive, mankind iterates and extrapolates until there are no further ways of taking the same piece of technology further, for it has fallen behind in effectiveness. Behind the discoveries made in the process of extrapolating.
• Only then mankind adds B into A’s extrapolations and iterations.
• Logic still applies and it permeates every piece of technology, magic and its components. Example, mechs do not wear giant shields of Adamantium/Unobtanium because they can be made of those materials instead. Ships might look like futuristic sleek jets, though only if they are intra-atmospheric. If not, a cube covered in exhausts on all sides is a better ship, even if you can magic away inertia and accelerate to FTL speeds.

Anyway, when you finish cringing about what I just wrote, let me present a solution to most problems that plague “Magic” Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

“Magic” isn’t really a supernatural thing, it’s a fundamental force just like the other four we already know, the only difference is that magic doesn’t respond to normally, or easily, quantifiable things, such as mass, inertia and so on and so forth. Instead, it answers the diverse types of emergent properties: conscience, intelligence, emotions, feelings, comprehension, etc. Magic might respond to the “soul” of things, from the barely conscious about themselves, to the largest type III civilizations contained within uncountable numbers of Matryoshka Brains. Or discard souls and put emergent properties in the same place. Or just use both and have scientists break their heads on why they cannot find a grand unified theory like in our current understanding of the universe. You know, like gravity and the quantum world don’t like mixing.

You can make that relation be non-linear. People so often forget about that.

Let a soul/emergent property be a base value of 1, then their magical capacity would be of 1. Twice that, a soul of 2 (insert magic counting unit here), like a novice space-wizard, and their power is 4. Half of that, a soul of 0,5, say, a loyal and intelligent creature-companion, their power is 0,25.

If you don’t like that, well, there are many other mathematical relations we can play with.

That's such a big compliment, thank you so much!!!

I like your ideas, and especially the part that even magic-based technology has to follow the logic of engineering and science. I personally find ships and technology designed by the constrains of the setting cooler rather that just doing whatever looks cool and it allows us to explore things that we couldn't otherwise.

Quantifying 'magical levels' is not without precedent, I mean, even in theology there's the heirarchy of angels and demons, but I would make it a logical, yet not entirely predictable process. You can have a working theory of magic that will explain most cases, just not every one of them.

I do want to keep a mystery around magic even if it is a natural force, which isn't actually hard to do... after all, a good portion of the knowlege about how our own universe works is still mysterious.

I've written hard(-ish) SF and cyberpunk, and I feel like hard-SF in particular is great for forcing me to come up with more interesting and creative ways to do things and make the overall setting 'work', instead of just using handwave magitech to explain everything away, so I'd throw down a vote for something in that direction. Obviously any sort of project will evolve over time, and starting with a predefined set of tropes is a great way to wind up with a cliché paint-by-numbers work, but at the very least I'd find a more 'grounded' approach to be most interesting.

I like Hard Sci-Fi too. However, I always go back to the Third Law's corollary for all my Sci-Fi and Fantasy worlds: "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science".

That's why I agree with Fox-Fire above that if we include magic, or otherwise *unrealistic* things (like FTL itself), it should obey an internal logic instead of just handwaving everything.

For the record, I'm also partial to hard science fiction, in fact one of the reasons I think it would be interesting to work with something more 'relaxed', Space Opera style is because my main project Pachamama Awakens is an attempt at (mostly) hard sci-fi. And hard sci-fi by limiting what you can do AND giving you tools to do other things you otherwise wouldn't consider makes always for very interesting settings.

One thing I wanted to do for a hard sci-fi setting is a "realistic Star Trek". By that I mean, there's an equivalent to Starfleet and the Federation, and they mostly work as advertised, Starfleet is an exploration and peacekeeping force mostly dedicated to advancing knowledge, and the Federation is an alliance of races that want to live in peace, even Earth is pretty much utopian compared to us (maybe right after WWII, the two superpowers met halfway when the USSR became democratic socialist and the US social democratic, and things just got better from there). But besides that, everything else is hard as metal. Spaceships look like this:

(from Atomic Rockets, a website we will see a lot more of)

Except they have an equivalent of FTL. But everything else, from technology to infrastructure to solar systems to the possible areas of study such an Starfleet could have is based as best as we can on hard science; no comfy carpeted starships, no transporters, no random time travel or interdimensional technobabble or weird spirits. Socially, while things are much better, there are still conflicts to be resolved, some very harsh ones. And there are of course no rubber forehead aliens, and while aliens are able to communicate with humans and even be allies (or enemies), they are very, very, well, alien.

Of course that's just MY proposal for a hard sci-fi setting. It's collaborative so I would like to see others!

 

[treefreak32]

Would love to help out, no matter which genre we go with.

 

[rexnerdorum]

Earth is pretty much utopian compared to us (maybe right after WWII, the two superpowers met halfway when the USSR became democratic socialist and the US social democratic, and things just got better from there).

I seriously can't tell if this is trolling, flame-baiting, or what. Keep this kind of politics in Chat.

Note that if you didn't call this "utopian" there would be no problem. Talking about meeting a totalitarian dictatorship "halfway" and calling it "utopian" is politically charged and highly controversial (and very, very scary for anyone whose family was murdered by the USSR).

 

[XFE]

I seriously can't tell if this is trolling, flame-baiting, or what. Keep this kind of politics in Chat.

Note that if you didn't call this "utopian" there would be no problem. Talking about meeting a totalitarian dictatorship "halfway" and calling it "utopian" is politically charged and highly controversial (and very, very scary for anyone whose family was murdered by the USSR).

Meeting halfway in this context is applied in diplomacy, not in ideology I believe.

 

[Thanksforallthefish]

I seriously can't tell if this is trolling, flame-baiting, or what. Keep this kind of politics in Chat.

Note that if you didn't call this "utopian" there would be no problem. Talking about meeting a totalitarian dictatorship "halfway" and calling it "utopian" is politically charged and highly controversial (and very, very scary for anyone whose family was murdered by the USSR).

I was thinking of a USSR that adopted the best of democracy and a USA that adopted the best of socialism. I don't think I ever implied totalitarian dictatorships are a good idea in any sense, I apologize if it somehow sounded like that.

 

[Zireael]

Hard s-f is fun but the problem is, how "hard"? Going very hard will make it difficult for people to contribute.
I voted cyberpunk but I would also like space opera

 

[Thanksforallthefish]

Hard s-f is fun but the problem is, how "hard"? Going very hard will make it difficult for people to contribute.
I voted cyberpunk but I would also like space opera

Depends, really. I consider hard sci-fi whatever that doesn't break the laws of physics or overall science, and where everything is engineered around real-life principles (usually FTL of some sort still exists, but if it does it's based in something that could be done, like wormholes). But that gives plenty of things to write, most especifically how society is affected by technology in the setting, which is the stuff good science fiction is about.

Fortunately there are plenty of resources on realistic science we can use.

I was meanwhile thinking about scale... if we go for something more interplanetary in scale, we can make an Earth (though not necessarily!) with some of the basemaps and then map the rest of the Solar System, there are basemaps for the major planets and we could cobble up together a Solar System map.

For larger scales, something else is required. The good ol' Altas of the Universe website is very helpful with that. See for example, here's a map with the stars closest to Sol, in a radius of 20 light years:

This is excellent for a setting of the first steps towards the stars, maybe even using sublight ships at first. Many of these stars already have catalogued exoplanets so if we want to go full realism we can.

Here's 250 light years out:

And here's 2000 lightyears out:

Note that these last two maps only show the brightest stars and nebulae. There's plenty of unknown space to be explored, perfect for a Star Trek setting. In fact, I very much doubt most space societies will have every single corner of space explored beyond probes and telescopes. Depending on if they have FTL or not, civilization might be concentrated in a few key star systems, while the rest might be populated only by remote self-sufficient habitats if at all (or space taverns in dusty forgotten colony worlds, if we want to go for something more pulpy).

Anything farther than this and we're dealing with galactic scale with millions and millions of star systems, with nebulae as the only points of reference. That mostly works with space operas where FTL is assumed to let you go all around the galaxy. I think in such a setting, species homeworlds and key star systems would be the most visited, with the rest of space mostly unexplored or with little of interest. You could also make the FTL to allow you to only go through certain routes (Mass Effect did something similar, and I thought of doing a space opera setting where stars are grouped in constellations of stable space reachable by an 'hyperdrive') so those systems will develop across the Galaxy. However, most space opera assumes either a Galactic Empire (or Federation, or Alliance, or whatever) or a collection of civilizations that are mostly in constant contact with each other, so most of the galaxy is home to some kind of random colony or another. I do love that idea in a romantic sense of a great multi-species galactic civilization. I also LOVE the idea of just buying a small tramp freighter and going around the Galaxy like a space trucker. I think the best quality of a space opera setting is that you can grab any random star and create an interesting place with its own unique culture, enviroment, etc.

In a realistic setting, the number of star systems and planets and resources of just a single spiral arm of the galaxy would be so overwhelming that I wouldn't even know to begin. I think the concept of 'civilization clusters', as in 'little' (light-years across) spheres of civilization based on homeworlds or large star systems in between unknown space is the best way to picture it instead of huge star empires.

 

[Zireael]

In my own hobby computer game, I have a hardish-sf approach (no FTL, technology mostly extrapolated from current tech even though it's the 2100s). To let the player actually get anywhere (consider that even Alpha Centauri is over 4 ly away), I used wormholes (hey, they are mostly theoretical, but they don't break a multitude of laws of physics unlike 99% of FTL drives proposed in various franchises).

Even 250 ly out is enough for a game/TL, the actual galactic scale would probably overwhelm most of us.

 

[traveller76]

I am interested

 

[Thanksforallthefish]

This also gave me a few ideas about expansion in a space opera setting:

Consider this: the Human Civilization (let's give it a neutral name) discovers FTL around the year 2200 (shout out to Stellaris). At first it is expensive and unreliable, and FTL spaceships are only available for the goverment and/or large private concerns. They establish the first colonies in worlds that have already been scouted by telescope or probe to have relevant resources (resources here kept as a vague word) but that aren't too far away from home and infrastructure (I would think spaceships, in any case, need a lot of maintaince).

Depending on the speed of the FTL, this initial sphere of influence can be anything from 20 to 500 light years across around the homeworld. Eventually other routes connect these worlds within the sphere with each other.

As space infrastructure grows, spaceships become cheaper. While there's plenty to do and live in 500 light years (realistically, there are hundreds of thousands of stars there), some people inevitably want more, or just to do things their own way, and so the sphere pushes outwards, but not within any organized effort, just connecting routes there, expanding to another system there, and of course exploring what's out there.

Inevitably, star systems with large resources are found beyond explored space, maybe something mysterious like abandoned dyson spheres or rich star clusters. They are far away from the infrastructure that allows civilian starships to exist, but they are reached by large-scale goverment or corporate expeditions that now are equipped with the experience of previous colonization efforts. Those keystone colonies, far away from the original sphere back at Sol, develop mini-spheres of their own, but also serve a stepping stones for farther colonies. And so, eventually a good part of the galaxy is claimed by Human Civilization. Between those, small scattered colonies served by tramp freighters abound; some failed colonies are only served by them.

And of course, this assumes that Human Civilization will be the main and most powerful civilization out there. There would be many minor civilizations associated or competing with it, though far away from the core at Sol... (this is not at all assured but I assumed there would be no competition in the early day of spacefaring Human Civilization)

This gives a very Star Wars like setting in some ways; the rich Core Worlds around Sol, the center of civilization, the not-so-rich but still important Colonies, the lesser known planets betwen them of the call it Mid-Rim, and the wild, wild worlds of the Outer Rim.

However this only works in a Space Opera setting where we pretend space is smaller than what really is. There are MILLIONS of star systems, between each sphere and WITHIN each sphere, that aren't colonized, probably not even explored, not even catalogued. There could be ENTIRE CIVILIZATIONS in them, consider that a 'small' sphere of 250 light years across has hundred of thousands of stars inside. In a realistic setting, it would be overwhelming to explore, let alone administrate, no kind of space empire could ever hope to control anymore than that, let alone something galaxy spanning.

That's why if we go with the Hard Sci-Fi route I propose we limit ourselves to a few light-years out from Sol. It would also fit the setting more.

 

[Fox-Fire]

But that gives plenty of things to write, most especifically how society is affected by technology in the setting, which is the stuff good science fiction is about.

I remember one of the great Sci-Fi authors of the past century, maybe even Asimov, saying that there three main types of stories to tell with Sci-Fi. They are simple and easy to understand. A man invents a car! Astounding in the moment and giving great ideas and promises of what might be and might come.

A man uses the car to catch a thief. Maybe he was escaping in a horse and the car outruns it. Great prowess and challenging of the conceptions of what we know of what we can do.

Finally, a much more mundane one: a man listens to the radio in his car, bored out of his mind in the traffic jam he is in. This might be the most boring of the three, but remember, the first story tells us of the human intellect, the second, of human perceptions of what’s possible, and the third, of human nature itself. Mind, world, and emotion. That’s the base of all the awe and sense of wonder we may find in literature or any other medium to transmit stories and all that takes with it.

We could have our story from the most primitive vapour-powered, wooden prototype of a car to the traffic jams. And, the best of all of this, we do not have to spell everything for everyone; imagination is more powerful when left with a trampoline and an infinity to jump into.

(or space taverns in dusty forgotten colony worlds, if we want to go for something more pulpy).

Speaking of this; people do not take this possibility seriously enough, nor do they take into account the power amassed nor the space available. When the meme’d-to-death character we all know from KR (no, don’t drag him into this directly) said “Every Man a King” he was speaking metaphorically. In this kind of setting, that’s literal. Not only every man a king, every human that has ever been born has the chance to be able to build their own utopia, if they have the resources and there would still be a monumentally incomprehensible amount of space left.

But, leaving behind that colossal amount of potential, if we were to centre ourselves into some simple stuff, we should start from the basics. I’m sad to say it, but my idea for magic does not seem to have prospered as much as I hoped it would (C’mon people, vote for that too… Please?). And so we are stuck with Hard Sci-Fi and some slight handwaving to make the story practical. That’s where I’ll start.

Let’s say that the FTL system required a machine on either end of a chain, or a circulatory system, to be able to move from one place to the other. Nonetheless, it is possible to construct these machines and put them into place, though, for the moment, it is quite expensive. I guess a good analogue would be to build a landing track for a large plane: not that hard but it’s annoying landing there in the first place, cleaning and setting up some stuff.

Anyway, once the landing track is there, then we would need fuel for our plane. Let’s say something simple, like a tiny part of a Dyson swarm, more like a Dyson ring than anything else if that. When arriving becomes easier, then the Dyson part of the ensemble would be the limiting factor.

Following that, I guess we are at the hydroplane stage and they can land in most places devoid of things that could interrupt the ship. The typical stuff like large gravity fields or clouds of dust, ice and gas. Ships can go anywhere they want, but they cannot arrive at any place immediately.

Finally, we have the VTOL stage of the plane, where every ship can be anywhere on the system and across systems.

So, we could even name them as different eras of exploration and expansion or whatever we want, like the Age of Discovery, the Age of Sail, the Age of Steam and such, were named IOTL.

Just put cool names on them. Era of Initial Expansion does the job but it’s horribly dull. We need to strike a balance between that dullness, the Sci-Fying stuff in excess, like the D-Century of Post-Transheliospheric Non-Relativistic-bound Expansion, and the glorifying of stuff in fancy old tongues, like, the Aeon of the Hierophantic Prime Motors/Movers. You know, something well thought and discussed and not simply pulled out of thin air like I did just now.

Or, you know, we can use all since mankind even today doesn’t use the same calendar for many things. Whatever the case, I feel that’s we must decide first.

Aliens are also a thing we need to agree on soon, but not necessarily is needed as immediate as the other thing. Also remember that if we are going hard Sci-Fi on alien life, several orders of maginute of it would likely be something like plasma-based exotic stuff. Then, of the remaining, orders of magnitude of bateria, then, of the remaining, several orders of magnitude of animals, then, of maybe of intelligent stuff and only then we can get on the lucky few spacefaring species. And that still would leaves us with uncountable species.

If you want to make a space race of beings we could even call "persons", in the traditional sense, then it's easier to make humankind splinter into many, many, many different ideologies, philosophies and technologies and have them develop in different directions. It's orders of magnitude easier for that to make sense than to take a simple terrestrial octopus, evolve/uplift it into something that could even communicate in the same terms as us. You know, beyond math and science.

You want cyber-people? Done. Space Romans? Done. Catgirls/dudes/enbies/hermaphrodites? Done. You want something that's all the three? It's still much easier for that to happen than to have an octopus, a cat, a dog, a raven or a whale evolve into anything resembling human society. Even some of the primates lead completely different social structures.

 

[Thanksforallthefish]

In my own hobby computer game, I have a hardish-sf approach (no FTL, technology mostly extrapolated from current tech even though it's the 2100s). To let the player actually get anywhere (consider that even Alpha Centauri is over 4 ly away), I used wormholes (hey, they are mostly theoretical, but they don't break a multitude of laws of physics unlike 99% of FTL drives proposed in various franchises).

Even 250 ly out is enough for a game/TL, the actual galactic scale would probably overwhelm most of us.

Yes, 250 ly is a LOT of stars. Tens of thousands, and if we keep a realistic game, we must assume many of those insignificant red dwarfs could potentially host living planets, or at least industrial habitats.

There is some work done on realistic wormholes that we can use.

Would be interesting to see that game, too!

I am interested

Great! Feel free to comment!

I remember one of the great Sci-Fi authors of the past century, maybe even Asimov, saying that there three main types of stories to tell with Sci-Fi. They are simple and easy to understand. A man invents a car! Astounding in the moment and giving great ideas and promises of what might be and might come.

A man uses the car to catch a thief. Maybe he was escaping in a horse and the car outruns it. Great prowess and challenging of the conceptions of what we know of what we can do.

Finally, a much more mundane one: a man listens to the radio in his car, bored out of his mind in the traffic jam he is in. This might be the most boring of the three, but remember, the first story tells us of the human intellect, the second, of human perceptions of what’s possible, and the third, of human nature itself. Mind, world, and emotion. That’s the base of all the awe and sense of wonder we may find in literature or any other medium to transmit stories and all that takes with it.

We could have our story from the most primitive vapour-powered, wooden prototype of a car to the traffic jams. And, the best of all of this, we do not have to spell everything for everyone; imagination is more powerful when left with a trampoline and an infinity to jump into.

Speaking of this; people do not take this possibility seriously enough, nor do they take into account the power amassed nor the space available. When the meme’d-to-death character we all know from KR (no, don’t drag him into this directly) said “Every Man a King” he was speaking metaphorically. In this kind of setting, that’s literal. Not only every man a king, every human that has ever been born has the chance to be able to build their own utopia, if they have the resources and there would still be a monumentally incomprehensible amount of space left.

But, leaving behind that colossal amount of potential, if we were to centre ourselves into some simple stuff, we should start from the basics. I’m sad to say it, but my idea for magic does not seem to have prospered as much as I hoped it would (C’mon people, vote for that too… Please?). And so we are stuck with Hard Sci-Fi and some slight handwaving to make the story practical. That’s where I’ll start.

Beautifully said.

I am not sure what you mean by Every Man a King though. Do you mean that rundown/abanoned colonies would not be plausible because technology/magic would allow people to build any utopia they liked it? While that sounds good in theory, there will be always competition (I imagine that in a post-scarcity economy, it would be over prestige, particulary interesting pieces of real state, rare art, etc.), and there's always the possibility some places will just have a lesser technology level than others for cultural or economic reasons...

And don't give up yet, the poll is not yet done! And it's not like space opera, for instance, can't include supernatural elements, especially those seen and explained from a "scientific" perspective. They are just called "psionics" or "the Force"... There are plenty of works were it was assumed that technological development would be paired with spiritual and/or psionic development. Of course those have no place in a straight hard science setting, but in a space opera they can work.

Let’s say that the FTL system required a machine on either end of a chain, or a circulatory system, to be able to move from one place to the other. Nonetheless, it is possible to construct these machines and put them into place, though, for the moment, it is quite expensive. I guess a good analogue would be to build a landing track for a large plane: not that hard but it’s annoying landing there in the first place, cleaning and setting up some stuff.

Anyway, once the landing track is there, then we would need fuel for our plane. Let’s say something simple, like a tiny part of a Dyson swarm, more like a Dyson ring than anything else if that. When arriving becomes easier, then the Dyson part of the ensemble would be the limiting factor.

Following that, I guess we are at the hydroplane stage and they can land in most places devoid of things that could interrupt the ship. The typical stuff like large gravity fields or clouds of dust, ice and gas. Ships can go anywhere they want, but they cannot arrive at any place immediately.

Finally, we have the VTOL stage of the plane, where every ship can be anywhere on the system and across systems.

So, we could even name them as different eras of exploration and expansion or whatever we want, like the Age of Discovery, the Age of Sail, the Age of Steam and such, were named IOTL.

Just put cool names on them. Era of Initial Expansion does the job but it’s horribly dull. We need to strike a balance between that dullness, the Sci-Fying stuff in excess, like the D-Century of Post-Transheliospheric Non-Relativistic-bound Expansion, and the glorifying of stuff in fancy old tongues, like, the Aeon of the Hierophantic Prime Motors/Movers. You know, something well thought and discussed and not simply pulled out of thin air like I did just now.

Or, you know, we can use all since mankind even today doesn’t use the same calendar for many things. Whatever the case, I feel that’s we must decide first.

Aliens are also a thing we need to agree on soon, but not necessarily is needed as immediate as the other thing. Also remember that if we are going hard Sci-Fi on alien life, several orders of maginute of it would likely be something like plasma-based exotic stuff. Then, of the remaining, orders of magnitude of bateria, then, of the remaining, several orders of magnitude of animals, then, of maybe of intelligent stuff and only then we can get on the lucky few spacefaring species. And that still would leaves us with uncountable species.

If you want to make a space race of beings we could even call "persons", in the traditional sense, then it's easier to make humankind splinter into many, many, many different ideologies, philosophies and technologies and have them develop in different directions. It's orders of magnitude easier for that to make sense than to take a simple terrestrial octopus, evolve/uplift it into something that could even communicate in the same terms as us. You know, beyond math and science.

You want cyber-people? Done. Space Romans? Done. Catgirls/dudes/enbies/hermaphrodites? Done. You want something that's all the three? It's still much easier for that to happen than to have an octopus, a cat, a dog, a raven or a whale evolve into anything resembling human society. Even some of the primates lead completely different social structures.

Hmm, so if I understand correctly, you would have a network of interstellar ships launched by laser or other form of energy. So, accelerating is easy, deaccelerating is the hard part. You can send ships anywhere but they have to invest a lot of propellant or energy into deaccelerating. Unless, of course they build similar stations in the destination system.

Sounds to me what we have here is an interstellar railroad. And whoever builds it/controls it will be an extremely powerful group indeed. Especially when whatever's needed to accelerate and deaccelarate starships could also be used as an extremely powerful weapon. A fascinating concept. (And I guess starships outside the network could also exist, just much more slowly)

Regarding aliens, I will soon post some thoughts on that, but yes, diversifying mankind through biotech and adding uplifted animals can be as interesting as aliens especially in a hard sci-fi setting. Even in novels from the 50s it was assumed that people born in high-gravity or low-gravity worlds would be different as well as those on orbit (one cheeky enough could make a "high-gravity dwarves" and "low-gravity elves" comparison even). With genetic engineering, I would assume many people would take the chance to modify themselves for water worlds, ice worlds, hothouse worlds, etc. and of course zero-g habitats.

And assuming a collapse of interstellar civilization (what would cause that though? maybe a botched singularity attempt, like I did in The Greatest Scam...) populations would just diverge naturally. You would need several tens of thousands of years to have any noticeably effects, but maybe genetic engineering and the enviroments of distant planets would accelerate the process.

"Oh no, the planet with all those catgirl maid cafés has been cut off civilization for a thousand years. Guess... guess we have a race of catgirls now."




Any more comments or suggestions??

 

[traveller76]

So the first age of expansion sees automated lightspeed sail probes sent to all neighboring systems. They then construct wormholes that link to one in sol. The one in sol is past Jupiter and the gravity well for security and access to the belt for raw materials.

 

[245]

Any more comments or suggestions??

For aliens, they could do the same thing as us humans and also use genetic modification and cybernetics to create their own clade as well. That something that I never get is that humans in sci-fi are portrayed as the only species that does genetic modification and cybernetics. When in truth, who said that other aliens civilization won't create the own clades through artificial or natural means.

The same goes for extinct aliens, in that just because the baseline species is gone does not mean, that the descendant clades can also still exist and create their own clades as well.

The way I see it, there are three types of aliens that humanity might meet. There are aliens that have a lower level of technology than us, these guys can be easily uplifted by human civilization and most likely become puppet states for any human power. There are aliens that are the same level of technology as us and can be either friends or rivals. And finally, there are the aliens who have a higher level of technology than us, and these guys are to be avoided and if notice, just is friendly to them and hope they don't notice us or try to play them off of us long enough for us not to be annexed like Ethiopia.

You should also watch Isaac Arthur if you want to get some hard sci-fi ideas.