# Step by Step Worldbuilding



## caters (May 25, 2016)

I don't often know where to start with worldbuilding.

Artefexian takes astronomy first when worldbuilding, particularly stars first, then planets, then moons.

I did his Build 1000 stars and I had to keep adjusting the measurements for the 1 solar mass stars to 1 in relation to the sun

I did lowest mass first for each spectral type to be safe.

The planets are what trouble me here. I can't easily look up minimums and maximums for different types of planets such as mini neptunes vs super earths vs hot saturns vs dwarf planets.

And for those I need mass, radius, density, and distance in AU to the star or stars and from those I can deduce the orbit properties.

I also can't easily figure out relative gravity(how much more or less gravity an astronomical body has compared to earth) and physics is my least favorite science.

So this means that exact composition of solar systems for me is practically impossible. However I know that red dwarfs are more likely to have 1 and just 1 planet and F type stars are most likely to have lots of planets and all stars in this range are outside of the mass range for type 2 supernovas. Type 1s can still occur though.

Because of this, I don't usually get to solar system level worldbuilding, much less star clusters.

I usually instead start with a single planet and get into more detail about that 1 planet. However in my story about humans living with dinosaurs, I will have lots of astronomy in the chapters about the trip from earth to this other planet.

Usually this astronomy is scattered with the rest of what the humans learn. Like for example the computers might say Warning, Supernova. The aliens would need to know whether it is going to form a black hole or a neutron star or eject 1 or more stars and change course accordingly. The humans would have to huddle together under sturdy structures. Then afterwards the aliens would teach the humans about supernovae, neutron stars, and black holes and the normal day/night cycle on the generation ship would continue.

Anyway, when they get to the solar system with the planet that has dinosaurs I will have to do astronomy level worldbuilding. But once again I can't find minimums and maximums for a lot of planet types. However I need these minimums and maximums, otherwise I could have a 15 earth mass, 2 earth radius, neptune-like planet and consider it a mini neptune according to radius. However this does not make sense at all since neptune's density is way lower than earth's density and at 1 jupiter mass(same as 15 earth masses) and 2 earth radii, the planet would be extremely dense and most likely be a pure iron planet.


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 25, 2016)

Let me be so bold as to ask a question. How necessary for the story is it to have this kind of astronomical detail? I ask this because I had the same problem as you. Where should I start world building? My answer finally came, it is that the world should affect the plot I want to write. Once i figure out the general plot I create the world to reflect the challenges presented with the plot. Sometimes I have to change the plot to better fit the world. Any bit of world building that does not directly relate to the plot gets relegated to a lesser tier of world building.


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## We Rise Above (May 25, 2016)

Reading Caters' post makes me glad that I don't have any story ideas that require that kind of detailed worldbuilding. I'm not sure I could handle that sort of intricacy.

My worldbuilding tends to start on a character-based level: where is my protagonist? What's around them? What's around that? Bit by bit, I come up with a setting or a country or two. I don't think I'll ever be working on a planetary scale. If you do, you have my admiration.


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## Russ (May 25, 2016)

If the information is necessary in that detail level (and I have my doubts) why world build at all.  Why not just look at real systems and emulate one?


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## caters (May 25, 2016)

The reason that I would world build at astronomy level is that the fictional solar system is most likely not anything like the solar systems we have discovered so far.

It is most likely similar to our own but with an earth-like planet in the density and mass range and thus gravity range that humans can tolerate but not an exact earth twin. It would also probably have gas giants such as super-jupiters(up to 15 jupiter masses), gas dwarfs such as mini-neptunes, hot jupiters(close to the star or stars), dwarf planets, and maybe even an iron planet.


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## Entrisen (May 25, 2016)

It really doesn't have to be more complicated than it needs to be, you need to plot out main events for your story, how the environment will effect and influence the plot points, and shape your world more around that. Write your first couple of drafts, that will give you an idea of where it should go and if the world fits with your story. If it doesn't work, that's okay it's only a draft. But writing the story and molding the world as you go really helps. Just makes lots of notes and what not. Your first draft does not need to look anything like the finished product. Hope that helps in some way!


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 25, 2016)

caters said:


> The reason that I would world build at astronomy level is that the fictional solar system is most likely not anything like the solar systems we have discovered so far.
> 
> It is most likely similar to our own but with an earth-like planet in the density and mass range and thus gravity range that humans can tolerate but not an exact earth twin. It would also probably have gas giants such as super-jupiters(up to 15 jupiter masses), gas dwarfs such as mini-neptunes, hot jupiters(close to the star or stars), dwarf planets, and maybe even an iron planet.



But is that kind of detail going to impact your story?


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## caters (May 25, 2016)

When the civilization has been established, they will probably use these planets to base their calendar. The hot jupiters would be good for week length = orbital period

The moon would establish the month and they would do math to figure out how many times the hot jupiter orbits the star or stars during the time the moon orbits once and thus know how long the month is.

The super jupiters and mini neptunes might establish units longer than a year. Dwarf planets might not establish any time period but still be important to the humans.


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## Russ (May 25, 2016)

caters said:


> When the civilization has been established, they will probably use these planets to base their calendar. The hot jupiters would be good for week length = orbital period
> 
> The moon would establish the month and they would do math to figure out how many times the hot jupiter orbits the star or stars during the time the moon orbits once and thus know how long the month is.
> 
> The super jupiters and mini neptunes might establish units longer than a year. Dwarf planets might not establish any time period but still be important to the humans.



Other than nostalgia why on earth would a technologically advanced society use planetary motions to determine the length of a month or week?


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## Ireth (May 25, 2016)

Russ said:


> Other than nostalgia why on earth would a technologically advanced society use planetary motions to determine the length of a month or week?



...Because that's how we do it? Our weeks are a certain number of days, which are measured by the Earth's rotations. Some calendars use the phases of the moon to measure months rather than the less consistent Gregorian calendar. How is that not derived from planetary motions?


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## Russ (May 25, 2016)

Ireth said:


> ...Because that's how we do it? Our weeks are a certain number of days, which are measured by the Earth's rotations. Some calendars use the phases of the moon to measure months rather than the less consistent Gregorian calendar. How is that not derived from planetary motions?



Absolutely.  We live with the vestiges of choices made by primitive man based on primarily superstitious or religious attributions as to the impact of the stars and planets on our life or the dictates of holy text.

But what I don't understand is why a society with the technology to travel for generations in space etc would impose those irrational structures on their society, other than nostalgia.


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## Ireth (May 25, 2016)

Russ said:


> Absolutely.  We live with the vestiges of choices made by primitive man based on primarily superstitious or religious attributions as to the impact of the stars and planets on our life or the dictates of holy text.
> 
> But what I don't understand is why a society with the technology to travel for generations in space etc would impose those irrational structures on their society, other than nostalgia.



Couldn't they have done it for the same reason we do? If their technology is so advanced, surely they've been around for a while, and in their less-advanced eras would naturally have defaulted to astronomy for the purpose of timekeeping.


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## Russ (May 25, 2016)

Ireth said:


> Couldn't they have done it for the same reason we do? If their technology is so advanced, surely they've been around for a while, and in their less-advanced eras would naturally have defaulted to astronomy for the purpose of timekeeping.



I am having a little trouble following this.

We use the lengths we do for weeks and months out of tradition, or religious belief.  But if these folks go to an another place and then decide to make the orbital periods of a hot jupiter a week, that choice seems virtually random.  Or what if that moon is fast or slow, do they go with a 90 day month or a 5 day month?  There is no rational reason to adopt those movements to structure your life around.  If they maintain the week on religious grounds than it should still be seven days shouldn't it?

There is no doubt astronomy has value for timekeeping, in the concept primarily of the day or year.  But not really for the week or month.  These are really cultural affectations more than anything else.

The lunar month is a pain the in math, is defined different ways, and doesn't match our culturally asymetrical calendar.  Discarding it is a fine idea.

The week, or month are much more tradition based or religion based, and I don't see how those concepts transport to a new planet so well or even effectively.

Think of it this way.  Our math system is decimal, would it not be much easier and more functional to have say a ten day week?  Or a month based on one tenth of a year?

If you have highly rational or scientific people who get a chance to build a calendar from scratch, it simply doesn't make sense that they would choose to  follow outdated superstitious or religious religious structures to do so.


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## TheKillerBs (May 25, 2016)

Russ said:


> Absolutely.  We live with the vestiges of choices made by primitive man based on primarily superstitious or religious attributions as to the impact of the stars and planets on our life or the dictates of holy text.
> 
> But what I don't understand is why a society with the technology to travel for generations in space etc would impose those irrational structures on their society, other than nostalgia.



Same reason we do. Force of habit and economics. It's a lot easier and cheaper to stick with what you've always done even if it doesn't make the most sense than it is to change to a more "logical" system.


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 25, 2016)

What this discussion is missing is whether or not these time telling methods and planetary movements is whether or not they'll have an actual impact on the characters or plot. Because if not there is little need to map these planets out and create an overly complex time telling system.


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## caters (May 25, 2016)

They would have impact, especially if a planet got broken apart or for some other reason, disappeared.

For example if the hot jupiter were to disappear, it would lose a lot of its mass and might get engulfed in a star. This would lead to the length of the week once again not known.

If the moon were to disappear, again a time period would not be known, this time the month.

And the unit of the month was based on our moon which completes an orbit every 29.5 days.

So yeah these planets are important to the humans. And it is not the humans themselves that are technologically advanced in all areas but rather the aliens that are transporting them. Sure the humans are technologically advanced in biology and chemistry but not so much in astronomy and definitely not in physics. Their overall lifestyle changes when they reach the planet with dinosaurs. It changes from technologically advanced on the generation ship to mostly stone age on the planet.


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 25, 2016)

caters said:


> They would have impact, especially if a planet got broken apart or for some other reason, disappeared.
> 
> For example if the hot jupiter were to disappear, it would lose a lot of its mass and might get engulfed in a star. This would lead to the length of the week once again not known.
> 
> ...


Which is all well and good. But does this affect a specific character in an immediate sense or does it affect the plot of the story in an immediate way? Or are you just building this solar system just for fun?


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## caters (May 25, 2016)

It does affect the plot of the story if a planet disappears or if the moon disappears. The moon disappearing would have immediate affect on everyone. A planet disappearing would affect an astronomer immediately leading him to hypothesize why the planet disappeared.

Once he/she knows why the planet disappeared, it will affect everyone because now they can't use that planet for a certain time period and would have to wait until a supernova ejects a planet in just the right way that it starts orbiting the star or stars of the solar system I am building at just the right distance range(For example a gas giant being ejected from what used to be the frost line of a different solar system to a distance very close to the star or stars if the hot jupiter disappears).


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## Ireth (May 25, 2016)

caters said:


> It does affect the plot of the story if a planet disappears or if the moon disappears. The moon disappearing would have immediate affect on everyone. A planet disappearing would affect an astronomer immediately leading him to hypothesize why the planet disappeared.



But the question is, DOES a planet or a moon disappear at any point in your story?


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 25, 2016)

Ireth said:


> But the question is, DOES a planet or a moon disappear at any point in your story?



^ That. The question isn't an abstract one, whether a moon COULD affect a story. It is whether the destruction of a moon DOES affect the story.


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## caters (May 25, 2016)

I don't know(I don't usually know what happens thousands or millions or billions of years later in my story, just hundreds at most) yet but since this new solar system is important for time periods, it would be best if it remained stable. Of course, if the star or stars get bigger(which if there are multiple stars could lead to the merging of 2 or more stars into 1 or more larger stars which is a drastic event and would likely result in a supernova) this might not be the case, especially for any hot jupiters.

Some scientists think that when the sun becomes a red giant the earth will be engulfed but others think that the earth and all other planets will move their orbits outwards. Others think that the earth won't be engulfed but it will melt just like how it melted in the collision that formed the moon and in the collisions between protoplanets and dwarf planets that eventually formed all 4 rocky planets in our solar system.

Any of these could happen to a hot jupiter's surface but the gas will for certain evaporate if this happens. This means that all that is left is a small rocky planet that used to be the core of a gas giant.

This would most likely mean the end of the dinosaurs and these humans as I know it unless the aliens do a form of gravity assist where the orbit becomes stable and stays in the habitable zone regardless of whether the star will form a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole or if 1 star becomes a white dwarf and accumulates mass ejecting the other star or stars or if they both become white dwarves and eventually merge. This merging of white dwarves could get to temperatures high enough to continue fusion and thus form a star from star remnants if there are enough of them.


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## ThinkerX (May 25, 2016)

Model your solar system off of real ones.  Try googling 'extra solar planet encyclopedia.'


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## Nomadica (May 25, 2016)

Russ said:


> I am having a little trouble following this.
> 
> We use the lengths we do for weeks and months out of tradition, or religious belief.  But if these folks go to an another place and then decide to make the orbital periods of a hot jupiter a week, that choice seems virtually random.  Or what if that moon is fast or slow, do they go with a 90 day month or a 5 day month?  There is no rational reason to adopt those movements to structure your life around.  If they maintain the week on religious grounds than it should still be seven days shouldn't it?
> 
> ...




It makes sense to me to tell time by a moon. It effects the tides and there is evidence to indicate it really does effect the menstrual cycle though some believe that is a myth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/00016348609158228/abstract

You can use the moon to know where you are in the year, especially if your planet doesn't have seasons.


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 25, 2016)

Nomadica said:


> It makes sense to me to tell time by a moon. It effects the tides and there is evidence to indicate it really does effect the menstrual cycle though some believe that is a myth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/00016348609158228/abstract
> 
> You can use the moon to know where you are in the year, especially if your planet doesn't have seasons.



It makes sense if you have a moon. It doesn't make sense on a generation ship though since there are no moons. A more...standardized method of time measurement would be better than basing it off of a moon of some kind.


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## caters (May 25, 2016)

Brian Scott Allen said:


> It makes sense if you have a moon. It doesn't make sense on a generation ship though since there are no moons. A more...standardized method of time measurement would be better than basing it off of a moon of some kind.



This is exactly why I stated that this would be for once the humans are on the planet this timekeeping with planets and moons.

On the generation ship, time is kept in terms of where the earth is in its orbit around the sun(since the generation ship is basically 1 giant earth and the aliens know how to make sunlight without using the sun as a light source). The aliens would know where the earth is in our solar system at the time that they leave earth and the earth's exact orbit(they have studied our solar system a lot from its humble beginnings to now) and orbital velocity and thus know when 1 year has passed even when they are billions of miles away from the sun.


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## caters (May 26, 2016)

And why should I model them on existing solar systems when a fictional solar system is more likely to be closer to ours in composition than other solar systems?

Most solar systems have 1 tidally locked planet orbiting around a red dwarf star(which can be as low as .08 solar masses). And most that aren't around red dwarfs only have gas giants such as hot Jupiters and mini Neptunes. And most rocky planets aren't in the habitable zone, much less earthlike. Ejected planets are relatively common and most of them are ejected because of a supernova. 

So my solar system would be most like ours. My Kepler solar system has only rocky planets, no gas giants. 2 of those are earthlike both having 4 moons and 2 are binary planets.

Because of this, I think personally that doing it from scratch the way artefexian does it, no matter how hard it is, is better than modeling it off of our solar system, much less other solar systems.


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## Nomadica (May 26, 2016)

Brian Scott Allen said:


> It makes sense if you have a moon. It doesn't make sense on a generation ship though since there are no moons. A more...standardized method of time measurement would be better than basing it off of a moon of some kind.



Agreed, I was only thinking of a situation where a moon was present.
In the world I am building the people are a tidally locked moon, Iso, which makes it very sensible to tell time partly by the phases of the planet it orbits since that's the only light they will have for a very long time and the phases will tell you how far into the dark period they are in and how long they have to go. Even if the people were advanced this would make sense.


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## Russ (May 26, 2016)

Nomadica said:


> It makes sense to me to tell time by a moon. It effects the tides and there is evidence to indicate it really does effect the menstrual cycle though some believe that is a myth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/00016348609158228/abstract
> 
> You can use the moon to know where you are in the year, especially if your planet doesn't have seasons.



It does make sense to use the moon to mark time if you don't have a better or more rational method.  That is why primitive people did it and we have not yet chucked it.

But if you are a sophisticated, scientific culture building a system from scratch it makes no sense at all.  There are many, many more rational and useful ways to structure your time than what are effectively arbitrary timespans.  

While you can use the moon's orbits (or any other fixed period of time) to tell you where you are in the year, there is no advantage or rational for doing so.  The amount of time it takes for the moon to travel around the planet is an independent variable to the amount of time it takes for the planet to orbit the star.  The number of lunar months in a year could be all sorts of numbers, none of which are particularly useful.


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## Russ (May 26, 2016)

caters said:


> On the generation ship, time is kept in terms of where the earth is in its orbit around the sun(since the generation ship is basically 1 giant earth and the aliens know how to make sunlight without using the sun as a light source). The aliens would know where the earth is in our solar system at the time that they leave earth and the earth's exact orbit(they have studied our solar system a lot from its humble beginnings to now) and orbital velocity and thus know when 1 year has passed even when they are billions of miles away from the sun.



Would it not make more sense to transition the time keeping on the generation ship from the origin planet to the destination planet to acclimatize the travellers for their destination?


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## Russ (May 26, 2016)

caters said:


> Because of this, I think personally that doing it from scratch the way artefexian does it, no matter how hard it is, is better than modeling it off of our solar system, much less other solar systems.



There is nothing wrong with doing it from scratch if you are writing hard SF, it just means you need to learn a great deal of science and math to do it well.  A worthy endevour for sure.


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## Vaporo (May 26, 2016)

caters said:


> And why should I model them on existing solar systems when a fictional solar system is more likely to be closer to ours in composition than other solar systems?
> 
> Most solar systems have 1 tidally locked planet orbiting around a red dwarf star(which can be as low as .08 solar masses). And most that aren't around red dwarfs only have gas giants such as hot Jupiters and mini Neptunes. And most rocky planets aren't in the habitable zone, much less earthlike. Ejected planets are relatively common and most of them are ejected because of a supernova.



The reason that we find so many "hot Jupiters" isn't necessaily because they're particularly common. They're just really easy to detect. As far as I know, watching a star and waiting for a planet to pass in front of it is pretty much the only way we can find a small terrestrial planets.

If you're looking to design a solar system from scratch, I wouldn't worry too much about making it 100 percent realistic. You can get into some pretty complicated stuff that even scientists researching them for years don't really understand. I'd just create some parameters that look semi-realistic, then run with it. You're probably not going to include a full description of the composition and orbit of each planet, and even if you did I doubt anyone would try to run a simulation of the formation of your solar system.

There's a free simulation program called Space Engine that exists entirely to create procedurally generated solar systems. The results aren't always perfect, but you can usually just look and see if planets cross orbits or something.


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## Nomadica (May 26, 2016)

Russ said:


> It does make sense to use the moon to mark time if you don't have a better or more rational method.  That is why primitive people did it and we have not yet chucked it.
> 
> But if you are a sophisticated, scientific culture building a system from scratch it makes no sense at all.  There are many, many more rational and useful ways to structure your time than what are effectively arbitrary timespans.
> 
> While you can use the moon's orbits (or any other fixed period of time) to tell you where you are in the year, there is no advantage or rational for doing so.  The amount of time it takes for the moon to travel around the planet is an independent variable to the amount of time it takes for the planet to orbit the star.  The number of lunar months in a year could be all sorts of numbers, none of which are particularly useful.



It makes sense in that things happen, technology fails, natural disaster messes with peoples plans. Though some people see the future technology as the cure all for world problems. But for me that doesn't feel realistic but rather idealistic like star trek. The more advanced and complex technology is the more opportunity for problem and the more vulnerable they will be the more they rely on it. One of my pet peevs is unrealistic rose colored glasses societies especially in the name of technology.


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## Russ (May 28, 2016)

Nomadica said:


> It makes sense in that things happen, technology fails, natural disaster messes with peoples plans. Though some people see the future technology as the cure all for world problems. But for me that doesn't feel realistic but rather idealistic like star trek. The more advanced and complex technology is the more opportunity for problem and the more vulnerable they will be the more they rely on it. One of my pet peevs is unrealistic rose colored glasses societies especially in the name of technology.



While I understand your philosophy, I don't think, for worldbuilding purposes one chooses a timing system based on the assumption of complete technological collapse and knowledge loss.

I also think that the more advanced technology is, the more robust it can (and should) become.  If a group can build generation ships and eliminate genetic defects in children and transport dinosaurs across interstellar distances, I suspect they can build robust watches.

Technology is an amazing lever.  I think much modern fiction underestimates it power, not the reverse.


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## TheKillerBs (May 28, 2016)

The more complex a system is, the more parts it has that can malfunction.


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## Russ (May 28, 2016)

TheKillerBs said:


> The more complex a system is, the more parts it has that can malfunction.



So would you rather be a passenger in an airplane built in 1917 or 2016?  Or a car built in 1920 or 2016?  Prefer to ride a motorcycle wearing a baseball hat or a modern race helmet?

How about the robustness of a computer in 1960 versus one with 1000X more computing power today?

Or would you prefer to be dependant on the water system say in Austria or Zambia?  I can tell you which one is more complex.

Plus "more advanced" does not always equal more complex.

Your approach is kind of a gross oversimplification of the analysis.


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## TheKillerBs (May 28, 2016)

Russ said:


> Or a car built in 1920 or 2016?  Prefer to ride a motorcycle wearing a baseball hat or a modern race helmet?
> 
> Or would you prefer to be dependant on the water system say in Austria or Zambia?  I can tell you which one is more complex.



Typing on a touchscreen sucks, so I'm doing as few words as possible. Incidentally, since you're talking about newer being better, I can tell you I much prefer a regular keyboard. But your criticism that it was oversimplified is quite fair.

With that said, I would rather wear a sallet over a baseball hat or a modern race helmet if I ever got the suicidal urge to get on one of those two-wheeled death traps. And give me a 90s Corolla over either of those choices. And planes? No thanks. I like having my feet over solid ground, thank you very much. Now if only my boss could get that...

As for the Austria versus Zambia water system? I don't know either of them, but I can tell you that neither of them will be able to handle a societal collapse like a good old-fashioned well with a bucket could.


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## Sheilawisz (May 29, 2016)

Hello everyone.

I think that it makes perfect sense, that suddenly something bad can happen and affect a technologically advanced civilization a lot. It's true that the advances of science have given us countless good things that make our lives better, but at the same time science has always had a dark side and it can open the door to many bad things as well.

The sad story of Fritz Haber and his wife Clara Immerwahr is a good example of this.

Fritz was a very talented German chemist. He won the Noble Prize for chemistry back in 1918 for inventing a process that synthesizes ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen, which resulted in massive agriculture as we know it. The truth is that billions of people today are fed thanks to Fritz Haber, so he could be considered a hero for the world...

That would be the good side of science in the hands of Fritz Haber.

The bad side is that, wishing to help his country during the Great War, he came up with the idea to deploy elemental chlorine as a weapon and he instructed the German army on how to do this. Fritz opened the door to modern chemical warfare when thousands of men died in terrible agony and fear engulfed by chlorine clouds at Ypres, April 22 1915, and that was just the start of it.

Clara was a brilliant chemist as well. She never agreed with what Fritz wanted to do, and as a result of that first chemical attack she decided to end her life and shot herself in the heart with her husband's personal gun. Clara saw the chlorine offensive as a corruption of science, but I quite disagree with her... Science is both good and evil, it's both light and darkness.

Another example is that massive agriculture is good because it produces enough food for billions of people, but as a result of that now we have an overpopulated world and various different problems are resulting from this.

The miraculous antibiotics promised the end of all infectious diseases, and for a long time it was incredible but now we are slowly returning to the pre-antibiotics era and we are not ready for it...

Today so many of us could not survive without a constant water supply and supermarkets simply because we lost contact with less advanced ways of life, and if something comparable to the Carrington event happens next week we would be in a hell of a trouble.

The Carrington storm did not cause serious trouble in 1859, but our electricity/computers-dependent world of today would be so affected by something like it that billions of people could die as a result.

I think that even a very powerful Interstellar civilization could perhaps fall prey to some kind of weapon or dangerous experiment created by their own science, or perhaps the disaster could come from encountering a different and not very friendly civilization that starts attacking them... Who knows, so many possibilities.

Science is like a dragon with two heads to me, one good and one bad.


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## Nomadica (May 29, 2016)

Russ said:


> So would you rather be a passenger in an airplane built in 1917 or 2016?  Or a car built in 1920 or 2016?  Prefer to ride a motorcycle wearing a baseball hat or a modern race helmet?
> 
> How about the robustness of a computer in 1960 versus one with 1000X more computing power today?
> 
> ...



Not the right questions, to simple. An AR15 is more likely to fail than old bolt action. Id choose a bolt action over an AR in a wilderness survival situation but not in a modern war situation. Its good to have both, the AR doesn't replace the bolt action completely.


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## Russ (May 29, 2016)

Nomadica said:


> Not the right questions, to simple. An AR15 is more likely to fail than old bolt action. Id choose a bolt action over an AR in a wilderness survival situation but not in a modern war situation. Its good to have both, the AR doesn't replace the bolt action completely.



For the discussion I was engaged in they were the right questions.

The assertion was that things that are more complex have more parts that can fail.  While mathematically that is simply true, it is not an accurate reflection of why, generally, advanced technology is better than older technology it has replaced.

Modern airplanes and cars are orders of magnitude more complex than older versions, and they are also faster, safer and more reliable.  More complex does not automatically equate to worse.  In fact with good design principles you can have more complex with greater reliability and effectiveness.  The evidence for this is all around you.

And, as I noted above, more advanced does not neccessarily mean more complex or less robust either.  For example a modern knife made with  modern materials can be lighter, tougher and hold a better edge longer, and more corrosion resistant than an older more primitive knife. The final product (the knife) is no more "complex" than its ancestor, but the new knife is more robust and superior to its ancestor.  

Overall, advanced technology offers many advantages over older more primitive technologies.

The AR comparison is not really a useful one either.  The AR is (to my mind) a particularly poor piece of equipment and more importantly it is not designed as a wilderness survival or hunting  rifle.  An MBR is not a wilderness survival tool. It is kind of like suggesting that a current KTM motorcycle is not as good as a 1950's Case tractor in plowing fields.  True, but irrelevant.

Personally for wilderness survival I would choose a modern Marlin or Weatherby, not a flintlock.  Which brings us to another point I was trying to make.  The bolt action weapon is, in operation, simpler, than older firearms, thus proving that "more advanced" does not mean more complex.  

While societal collapse scenarios are entertaining and offer great opportunities for symbolic writing, they are not realistic, and complexity and "advanced" systems and techniques make such a collapse less likely and more easy to recover from than at any time in history.  that is become that in recorded history catastrophe's have tended to be local or at least not global.  Now, when a region is devastated by a catastrophe, aid can come pouring in from other locations at rates, quantums and effectiveness never before imagined.  It is virtually miraculous how fast we can, and do, get aid to isolated areas where there is a disaster.  I have a friend who does this kind of work overseas when earthquakes etc happen, and he and his team are there within days of the initial disaster, usually arriving by aircraft, guided by GPS, and delivering medical care and rescue aid that was impossible even a decade and a half ago.  

By all means  have a hand water pump in your backyard.  But if you are engaging in social engineering (real of fictional), take Austria's water system over Zambia's.


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## Russ (May 29, 2016)

Sheilawisz said:


> I think that it makes perfect sense, that suddenly something bad can happen and affect a technologically advanced civilization a lot. It's true that the advances of science have given us countless good things that make our lives better, but at the same time science has always had a dark side and it can open the door to many bad things as well.



So you are talking about two different things here.

The first is that a natural disaster can have a significant impact on a technologically advanced society.  The second is that technology has no conscience and can be used for terrible purposes in the wrong hands or by misguided worldviews.

On the second point I agree with you totally.  Science and technology are tools, not guiding principals.  The more advanced technology you have the more harm its misuse can  have, and the more dangerous the deviant individual can become.  Very true.

The Carrington event is an excellent example.  It could, if handled badly, cause power outages in some places for as long as a year.  But if that is the risk, then the natural next question has to be what do you do to avoid that risk?

Do you not use GPS?  Dump cell phones and replace computers with slide rules just to be safe?  Or do you drive your science to become more advanced so that you can give more advanced warning of those type of events (which we now do, up to 20+ hours actually), and design more robust equipment that won't fail catastrophically when faced by such an event?

I think the answer is pretty straightforward.


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## La Volpe (May 29, 2016)

Vaporo said:


> If you're looking to design a solar system from scratch, I wouldn't worry too much about making it 100 percent realistic. You can get into some pretty complicated stuff that even scientists researching them for years don't really understand. I'd just create some parameters that look semi-realistic, then run with it. You're probably not going to include a full description of the composition and orbit of each planet, and even if you did I doubt anyone would try to run a simulation of the formation of your solar system.



I once tried to do something very similar to what caters is doing now (i.e. create a whole solar system from scratch), but it eventually just ended up with me spending weeks on end discovering countless new, complex, and frankly fascinating things about solar systems and planets (and not understanding very much of it). There was just so much stuff that I had to know that I was getting nowhere with the actual story.

I think that you can get a 95% realistic world/solar system/energy weapon/etc. with a reasonable amount of research. But to cross that last 5% to make it a 100% realistic takes a lot longer. And I've found that it takes a lot of fun out of a story. I like to handwave the few details that could possibly cause my entire premise to be faulty. But maybe that's just me.


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## Nomadica (May 29, 2016)

My point is simply that in many situations its still useful to back up new, good technologically with the old. That doesn't mean replace it. like when you mentioned a hand pump. That's great to have along side a well designed modern water system. A hand pump still has value today. It wouldn't hurt to base time measurement of a planet off the solar system. It would simplify it because it would be practically handed to you instead of having to invent a system. What benefit would come from redesigning a time system. I would use a moons orbit to measure time, it doesn't have to be called a month and it doesn't matter if the orbit is slow or fast. I find it highly unlikely that a society would lack a name for their lunar cycle. That name would be a form of time measurement even if its not the most commonly used. Just customize it to the planet. That's the fun part. What if your new planet spins 1/4th the rate of earth? Bet you'd still have a name for this cycle even though you wouldn't have a sleep cycle that coincided with the light and dark periods and it would still effect you unless you were completely under ground maybe. Obviously a society would layer other measurements of time over the solar ones like we have minutes and such, but to me the solar ones still make sense to have. I see the question flipped around. Unless you can find a great benefit to booting them why wouldn't you keep using the same functional system? though it could make sense to use other systems too as we do today non of them has replaced our local solar based ones.


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## Russ (May 29, 2016)

Nomadica said:


> My point is simply that in many situations its still useful to back up new, good technologically with the old. That doesn't mean replace it. like when you mentioned a hand pump. That's great to have along side a well designed modern water system. A hand pump still has value today. It wouldn't hurt to base time measurement of a planet off the solar system. It would simplify it because it would be practically handed to you instead of having to invent a system. What benefit would come from redesigning a time system. I would use a moons orbit to measure time, it doesn't have to be called a month and it doesn't matter if the orbit is slow or fast. I find it highly unlikely that a society would lack a name for their lunar cycle. That name would be a form of time measurement even if its not the most commonly used. Just customize it to the planet. That's the fun part. What if your new planet spins 1/4th the rate of earth? Bet you'd still have a name for this cycle even though you wouldn't have a sleep cycle that coincided with the light and dark periods and it would still effect you unless you were completely under ground maybe. Obviously a society would layer other measurements of time over the solar ones like we have minutes and such, but to me the solar ones still make sense to have. I see the question flipped around. *Unless you can find a great benefit to booting them why wouldn't you keep using the same functional system?* though it could make sense to use other systems too as we do today non of them has replaced our local solar based ones.



In this scenario, a new planet entirely, you are not discarding a functional system, you are building a system from scratch.   Earth's old "functional" system would be useless on a new planet.

Now, if you folks speak english, they might well choose to call interim measures of times, weeks and months.  But there is no logic or reason to tying them to arbitrary (or effectively arbitrary planetary motions).

The chances are that (like here) the number of weeks and months doesn't work out evenly or in any functional way with days and years.  

Our current calendar is obviously flawed and based on superstition and religious belief.  If you had a chance to build a new calendar from scratch why would you choose to build in pre-existing flaws that you know about when you have a chance to build something better?  

There is actually a lot of good reasons to fix our calendar but we just don't get around to it:

Is It Time to Overhaul the Calendar? - Scientific American

Calendar reform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

World Calendar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And these are just examples of how to try to fix a screwed up system.  If you had the chance to build a rational system from the get go I don't see why you wouldn't.


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## Nomadica (May 29, 2016)

I can see what you mean and the inefficiencies in our own system. I still have a hard time imagining that a society would not take into consideration their moon or moons to some level if moons are present. Depending on the planet that may or may not be efficient. I look at time in terms of visible changes and movements. At the very least I can't imagine not taking visible changes into consideration. Like seasons for example, which a planet may or may not have, is a time telling system or time marker for me on a basic level. Perhaps that means my brain is primitive. Would people really ignore a rhythmic visible time marker if it wasn't 100 % perfect? I myself would not but I see that you would so I don't know. What would you put in it's place?
I have a hard time excepting a system that I cant see.


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## Sheilawisz (May 29, 2016)

Russ said:


> The Carrington event is an excellent example.  It could, if handled badly, cause power outages in some places for as long as a year.  But if that is the risk, then the natural next question has to be what do you do to avoid that risk?
> 
> Do you not use GPS?  Dump cell phones and replace computers with slide rules just to be safe?  Or do you drive your science to become more advanced so that you can give more advanced warning of those type of events (which we now do, up to 20+ hours actually), and design more robust equipment that won't fail catastrophically when faced by such an event?
> 
> I think the answer is pretty straightforward.



Indeed, I agree that it's necessary to keep getting ready for another Carrington event because it's going to happen someday. I know of the warning systems and the strategies that have been designed to deal with it, but still this is a challenge that our world has never faced and we cannot be sure how well we would deal with it.

We can only hope that our advances would get us through some terrible natural disaster alright, but there is no certainty about how well we would do. Another type of disaster that we have not faced yet is a colossal volcanic explosion, and it's not even a supervolcano that would be powerful enough to get our world in trouble.

Exactly two hundred years ago, 1816 was a year without a summer in the Northern hemisphere.

The unusual and very harsh weather ruined agriculture that year, and as a result there were confusion, panic, violence and many people facing starvation. The cause of this disaster was a volcanic explosion of Mount Tambora in what now is Indonesia the year before that, which was so powerful that the world has not seen anything like it since then.

What would happen if a similar explosion took place today?

We have an incredible world with loads of advances that were difficult to imagine a long time ago, and many people consider civilization to be unstoppable while in fact we have not faced a severe, really serious challenge yet. I think that we will always be vulnerable in one way or another, and even an Interstellar power like what Caters describes could face some kind of trouble.

For example, I really hope that interstellar travel is impossible.

Sure it would be epic and incredible to see Earth's powerful ships venturing into the mysteries of interstellar space, so glorious, so great... I love the idea of it, but this also means that if we ever reach the capability to do that then surely many other civilizations out there would be able to do the same.

What if we encounter others? What if they come here first?

*Caters:* Your ideas sound intriguing, but if you really want your story and settings to have an authentic Sci Fi atmosphere you should worry more about the acceleration and deacceleration processes that would be involved in the travel. Inertia represents a huge problem, not to mention a possible encounter with some tiny particle along the way and the prolonged lack of gravity.

Good luck with it! I want to create a good Sci Fi story someday, but it's really difficult to do right.


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## TheKillerBs (May 29, 2016)

Societal collapse is not realistic if you're talkng about a global scenario. I meant a local collapse, which really has happened all the time during history. Poor choice of words, perhaps. The reason I brought it up is because things like water distribution systems require a stable society to work well. The societal infrastructure is, for me, the most complex and vulnerable component of any such system to the extent that the other components are irrelevant. If either country were involved in a war in their own soil, their water system (and power supply and everything else) would fail very much.


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## Russ (May 30, 2016)

Nomadica said:


> I can see what you mean and the inefficiencies in our own system. I still have a hard time imagining that a society would not take into consideration their moon or moons to some level if moons are present. Depending on the planet that may or may not be efficient. I look at time in terms of visible changes and movements. At the very least I can't imagine not taking visible changes into consideration. Like seasons for example, which a planet may or may not have, is a time telling system or time marker for me on a basic level. Perhaps that means my brain is primitive. Would people really ignore a rhythmic visible time marker if it wasn't 100 % perfect? I myself would not but I see that you would so I don't know. What would you put in it's place?
> I have a hard time excepting a system that I cant see.



The only reason you have trouble seeing such a system, is because we have always done it one way.  One of the great things about spec fic is that it invites us to think far beyond our historical/cultural assumptions.

Only certain contingencies caused us to adopt our little disfunctional calendar that bumps along.  There is no reason to believe that those contingencies would arise such that another society would do the same thing again.


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## Darkfantasy (Jun 2, 2016)

Beware of world builders disease.
If this Astrology stuff is really important to your novel then obviously establish it. If not don't waste your time there. Some people work from the outside in (as you do) some work from inside out (with the MC) Their life then draw it out to the lives of others, other cultures and so on.

I tend to split my planet into two. I look at the physical world (what would exist their without humans) Then I look at the Cultural world (what people bring/affect). I decide which is centre stage and I work mostly on those things because other wise you can get bogged down.


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