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Assistance building a new world for my fictional universe

ClearDragon

Troubadour
Hello people.
I'm starting a new world building project for my fictional universe and need a bit of help deciding things.
It's going to be a planet very distant from earth, it will be considerably warmer then earth.
Now for the backstory I've just started, it will have been a naturally habitable planet, but one where no native intelligent life exits or no life at all evolved.
Now what I am having trouble with is that for my story ancient humans where transplanted there by some super advanced beings, and I'm not sure who these people should be. I'm looking at ancient Greeks or Hawaiians. I really like ancient Greek culture and native Hawaiian culture! My problem is I think readers might find Greeks to be boring, but I'm not sure Hawaiians would develop advanced technology like I know the Greeks would! I want the planets civilization to be more advanced then earth.
Also what should the name of the planet be? Neo Gaia maybe?
 

Lynea

Sage
Perhaps you might try basing a race off of Hawaiian culture, and give them some technological assets like ships and stuff. A good example of this is Wakanda- where it's based on African culture but they have the power of vibranium to make them a high-end civilization.

A planet's name is usually a single word. I like Gaia more by itself.
 

jacksimmons

Scribe
One question I might ask if I were reading this is how come this isolated human civilisation has developed so similarly to another Earth-based culture like the Greeks or the Hawaiians. On a planet with different topography, with a completely separate cultural history, I would expect a civilisation to be vastly different. I would make concessions considering its sci-fi/fantasy, but having this culture be basically the same as a real world culture might be too much of a stretch. This seems like a really cool opportunity to create a human civilisation with vastly different, maybe totally alien, customs and traditions.

As for the name of the planet, how about neoterra? Or, if this planet was named by ancient aliens or a group of humans totally separate from Earth, perhaps it should have an alien sounding name? Terra and Gaia are allusions to real-world history that these people (the ones that name the planet) wouldn't have knowledge of.
 

Eduardo Ficaria

Troubadour
I think you should consider first the following points:
  • Why those superbeings even bothered to take some primitive humans to another planet? For experimentation purposes? For fun?
  • Why they chose a particular kind of people? Overall, humans are essentially the same at the genetic level. Broadly speaking, we only have some minor biological differences, mostly due to environmental adaptation.
  • Do those taken humans know the superbeings? Do they deal with them directly or through some sort of supertitious way?
  • Are the humans aware or remember that they were taken from Earth?
  • Be very careful with your world's temperature:
    • Humans are highly adaptable but protecting against heat is difficult. You'll need
    • Human heat tolerance is highly dependant on the environment. For instance, forget about plowing crop fields for hours under a punishing sun if the air humidity is high, it will collapse and kill your settlers since our sweating mechanism wouldn't be able to cope with such conditions.
    • Earth is considered a cold planet, and nowadays you can find a ton of articles talking the actual consecuences of the increase of just one degree celsius: more heath means more energy feeding a planet's climate system, making it more extreme and less stable.
    • Venus is an example of a planet with a extremely hot (and crushing) environment: it seems that it's temperature's surface is even hotter than Mercury's! This is due to the particularities of Venu's atmosphere which, among other deadly things, exerts an extreme greenhouse effect on the planet.
  • If there's no life on the planet at all (including plants and even extremophiles), how those humans were suppose to survive there in the first place? This could force them to rely completely on the superbeings' help.
Regarding what civilization to choose, why don't you use both greeks and hawaiians? Those cultures never meet at all, so this could give you room for experimentation with them. And don't speculate about what a reader might find boring, just worry about writing a good story with the elements you have chosen. Now, you'll have to ponder why the superbeings chose those two cultures and how those humans have been culturally affected by being taken to another planet. Regarding the greeks, remember that in their classic period they weren't an unified culture. Athenians had their ways and the spartans their own different ones, so you'll also have to think about which greeks you might like to take to that planet.

About the name of the planet, it depends. The superbeings maybe just have a technical numerical ID for it, the greeks may call it Neogaia (which I find rather trite) and the Hawaiians could call it "the new island under the sea of stars" (translated to hawaiian, of course).

Finally, if the human civilization of that planet is more advanced than ours on Earth, that means that probably already have spaceships and advanced weaponry that could become a menace to the superbeings. Then you have to ask yourself, why the superbeings would tolerate this progress?
 

ClearDragon

Troubadour
One question I might ask if I were reading this is how come this isolated human civilisation has developed so similarly to another Earth-based culture like the Greeks or the Hawaiians. On a planet with different topography, with a completely separate cultural history, I would expect a civilisation to be vastly different. I would make concessions considering its sci-fi/fantasy, but having this culture be basically the same as a real world culture might be too much of a stretch. This seems like a really cool opportunity to create a human civilisation with vastly different, maybe totally alien, customs and traditions.

As for the name of the planet, how about neoterra? Or, if this planet was named by ancient aliens or a group of humans totally separate from Earth, perhaps it should have an alien sounding name? Terra and Gaia are allusions to real-world history that these people (the ones that name the planet) wouldn't have knowledge of.

The idea is that they developed directly from the culture they came from. For instance modern Greece has a lot of old customs and still use the same language and architecture style as they did in ancient times. Yes a lot has changed too, but its still recognizable.
My plan is that they would have changed a lot and won't be like modern greece, but would still be recognizable as a culture derived from classic greek culture. I like the name neoterra.

Answer to Edwardo Letavia.
The super beings took a sample of the most advanced civilization they found on earth during their visit, they where to be part of an experiment to see how they would develop on a world without any other human rivels. Also the super beings where hoping to use them in a future proxy war.
Also the beings provided them with everything they needed to survive and adapt. The greeks would likely have figured out they had been taken to another world, as they did have the concept of planets.
The planet would be very different then earth, but still within human capacity to adapt.
Now the story is that the super beings where aliens, but not too far outside of human understanding just very much more advanced technology. They kept themselves completely secret from the humans, but where planning on interacting with them eventually. Before that could happen they and the other aliens they planned on using the humans against where destroyed by multi-dimensional lovecraftean creatures that live inside black holes. The greek colony world was overlooked because they where basically primitives and had no high technology that the freaks could detect. Then after many centuries the greeks would develop advanced tech and slowly find clues about where they came from and the super beings. They would also discover the black hole creatures eventually.
 

Eduardo Ficaria

Troubadour
Answer to Edwardo Letavia.
The super beings took a sample of the most advanced civilization they found on earth during their visit...
I think you're forgetting the egyptians, the persians, the chinese and indian kingdoms... I don't know which time period you'll take your greeks from, but I'm sure you'll find civilizations around the same timeframe with a similar level of development. I mean, maybe you should think about another justification to choose the greeks over others, maybe the superbeings went to Earth in the days of Alexander the Great and chose to get a bunch of macedonians due to their military success against the persian empire?.

Also the beings provided them with everything they needed to survive and adapt...
They kept themselves completely secret from the humans, but where planning on interacting with them eventually...
If the beings provide their chosen settlers with all their needs, they'll have to interact with them somehow. Hence the secrecy becomes impossible, in particular when they must give them everything (including training) to start a new civilization in such a barren planet. Also, you have to consider that the superbeings want those humans to become an asset in a war, so they'll want them to develop certain traits, not just becoming an advanced civilization like them. Also, why the superbeings need humans to fight against another superrace? Can't the superbeings just build drones and automated fleets or armies guided by artificial intelligences?

..Before that could happen they and the other aliens they planned on using the humans against where destroyed by multi-dimensional lovecraftean creatures that live inside black holes...
This twist of fate turns your superbeings, their (assumed) super enemies and their war into rather irrelevant things, giving much more prominence to those lovecraftian creatures. Not a bad thing per se (the Mass Effect videogame saga has kind of a similar concept at is core), but if you're not careful with this the work you put into defining the superbeings and all their related things could end being wasted time. Maybe you could make the lovecraftian monsters the enemies of the superbeings that only those chosen humans can fight for some reason or other.
 

jacksimmons

Scribe
The idea is that they developed directly from the culture they came from. For instance modern Greece has a lot of old customs and still use the same language and architecture style as they did in ancient times. Yes a lot has changed too, but its still recognizable.
My plan is that they would have changed a lot and won't be like modern greece, but would still be recognizable as a culture derived from classic greek culture. I like the name neoterra.

I realised I sort of misinterpreted your original post. By 'ancient man' I thought you meant cave-dwelling man. I think the idea of taking a culture like the ancient greeks and dropping them on an alien world is really cool.
 

ClearDragon

Troubadour
I realised I sort of misinterpreted your original post. By 'ancient man' I thought you meant cave-dwelling man. I think the idea of taking a culture like the ancient greeks and dropping them on an alien world is really cool.

Thats alright, and thanks.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Now for the backstory I've just started, it will have been a naturally habitable planet, but one where no native intelligent life exits or no life at all evolved.

I am pretty certain that life is "pervasive" across the universe. If the conditions for life exist on a planet/moon, then life will evolve there; even if only bacterial life. Perhaps this planet simply doesn't have intelligent life, just flora and fauna. Besides, if the planet is empty of flora and fauna, then what would these transplanted Humans eat? What would they use to build their houses? Make their clothes?
 

Miles Lacey

Archmage
The questions I would ask:

Did the aliens place the ancient Greeks in one place or did they dump them all around the world that was created for them? If the latter how did the ancient Greeks adapt to the new environments, the resources that were available to them, their customs and their beliefs? If you stuck ancient Greeks on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific I suspect their descendants would have next to nothing in common with the descendants of the ancient Greeks who lived in Greece.

Was it just ancient Greeks who were chosen? Perhaps other groups were also chosen to see how they adapted to this new world? This is where you could introduce native Hawaiians. Maybe the ancient Greeks haven't discovered the whole world yet and don't realise other groups have been placed in other parts of the world.

Another thing you could look at is that different groups may have been given different stories about why they were put in this world and how it was created to ensure there would be conflict. This would serve the aliens well if their ultimate aim is to create armies to fight proxy wars at some point.

What, if any, interactions take place between the aliens and the people in the world? Do the aliens still come to monitor their experiment? Or have they decided that their experiment has been a failure as far as their objectives were concerned but they might still prove useful further down the path?

So many questions....!
 

ClearDragon

Troubadour
The questions I would ask:

Did the aliens place the ancient Greeks in one place or did they dump them all around the world that was created for them? If the latter how did the ancient Greeks adapt to the new environments, the resources that were available to them, their customs and their beliefs? If you stuck ancient Greeks on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific I suspect their descendants would have next to nothing in common with the descendants of the ancient Greeks who lived in Greece.

Was it just ancient Greeks who were chosen? Perhaps other groups were also chosen to see how they adapted to this new world? This is where you could introduce native Hawaiians. Maybe the ancient Greeks haven't discovered the whole world yet and don't realise other groups have been placed in other parts of the world.

Another thing you could look at is that different groups may have been given different stories about why they were put in this world and how it was created to ensure there would be conflict. This would serve the aliens well if their ultimate aim is to create armies to fight proxy wars at some point.

What, if any, interactions take place between the aliens and the people in the world? Do the aliens still come to monitor their experiment? Or have they decided that their experiment has been a failure as far as their objectives were concerned but they might still prove useful further down the path?

So many questions....!

Hi sorry for the late reply.
My idea was a single village and people from surrounding farms and such where taken to the other planet.
Also some of the problems of there being such a small group like a genetic bottleneck and such where to be addressed in the future era of my stories.
Now I was thinking that yes they would change a lot from the ancient greeks and would not be like modern greeks on earth, but maybe still would ahve recognizable traditions and language.
As to the aliens who put them there, they got destroyed before their agenda for the people they abducted could really progress. In the story evidence of them will be discovered and suggestions of their purpose found.
An interesting idea I have is that the greek people made up a story that Alexander was losing the war and the Persians would kill all the greeks so the gods moved the village to a new world.
 
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