my fantasy planet is trillions of years old, so where is the tech? (explanation)

[thatoneguywho-]

why did I choose medieval stagnation in such an old world? humans here have existed for trillions of years instead of only thousands. so why don't they have futuristic tech? why isn't it a science fiction

well, here's a story.

in the begining of humanity, magic reigned. nobody had need of materials when the earth elementals could build the houses. nobody needed clean water when the water elementals could quench their thirst. nobody needed to harness light when the sun elementals could do that. nobody needed to make fire when the flame elementals could do that. nobody needed to make fresh air when the wind elementals could give them them. nobody would care about sickness when [REDACTED]. nobody needed to waste time when [REDACTED].

and then, Abai emerged. the people began to distrust the elementals. years later, one man, Arin Dilinouis, denounced them completely, showing off a new invention: the gun.

that's right. a gun. and more. this is the industrial revolution. during this time, the world had about the same tech as we do now. but all was never well. Abai then invaded. at first, humanity believed that they could destroy her with their weapons. but upon seeing those weapons pierce through her monsters armor, Abai flew into a rage. she meticulously destroyed all the technology that she could and the resources used to make them. this caused flooding, death, radioactive areas, and more. thankfully for humanity, the elementals stepped in and saved them, though due to that war, an industrial age will never again come to this world...

 

[SamazonE]

I was thinking of the Anime X. That seems to be where fantasy is headed these days. It is like the cursor has fractured. My advice would be, slap an R rating to it, sell it on the black market, write something other than chronologically, then you will find this, redacted.

What I’m concerned about, is snakes hiding in every corner. There is the sword, that shines like sting, or the ring, that is owned by IT developers, but there are other places to go, besides just the historic, vice.

Look at Homer. He got over it. There are plenty of reasons Ned Flanders is better physically and mentally. He got to look after his family, just like they were his kin, or looked into getting that newest letter, in the letterbox.

 

[pmmg]

I was thinking of the Anime X. That seems to be where fantasy is headed these days. It is like the cursor has fractured. My advice would be, slap an R rating to it, sell it on the black market, write something other than chronologically, then you will find this, redacted.

What I’m concerned about, is snakes hiding in every corner. There is the sword, that shines like sting, or the ring, that is owned by IT developers, but there are other places to go, besides just the historic, vice.

Look at Homer. He got over it. There are plenty of reasons Ned Flanders is better physically and mentally. He got to look after his family, just like they were his kin, or looked into getting that newest letter, in the letterbox.

What?

why did I choose medieval stagnation in such an old world? humans here have existed for trillions of years instead of only thousands. so why don't they have futuristic tech? why isn't it a science fiction

well, here's a story.

in the begining of humanity, magic reigned. nobody had need of materials when the earth elementals could build the houses. nobody needed clean water when the water elementals could quench their thirst. nobody needed to harness light when the sun elementals could do that. nobody needed to make fire when the flame elementals could do that. nobody needed to make fresh air when the wind elementals could give them them. nobody would care about sickness when [REDACTED]. nobody needed to waste time when [REDACTED].

and then, Abai emerged. the people began to distrust the elementals. years later, one man, Arin Dilinouis, denounced them completely, showing off a new invention: the gun.

that's right. a gun. and more. this is the industrial revolution. during this time, the world had about the same tech as we do now. but all was never well. Abai then invaded. at first, humanity believed that they could destroy her with their weapons. but upon seeing those weapons pierce through her monsters armor, Abai flew into a rage. she meticulously destroyed all the technology that she could and the resources used to make them. this caused flooding, death, radioactive areas, and more. thankfully for humanity, the elementals stepped in and saved them, though due to that war, an industrial age will never again come to this world...

If this is how you say the world is, than it is. But a trillion years is a very long time not to have advanced very far. Heck, even the goddess might get sick of being a goddess to these dunderheads in that length of time.

To wipe it all out would take commitment. I am reminded of the best laid plans of mice and men...and goddesses... in that regard.

Anyway...all of this backstory. What story do you want to tell with this?

 

[thatoneguywho-]

If this is how you say the world is, than it is. But a trillion years is a very long time not to have advanced very far. Heck, even the goddess might get sick of being a goddess to these dunderheads in that length of time.

To wipe it all out would take commitment. I am reminded of the best laid plans of mice and men...and goddesses... in that regard.

Anyway...all of this backstory. What story do you want to tell with this?

oh yeah hundreds of trillions actually

magic was the force that kept back progress at the time, so it being everywhere stagnated the world.

urg I wish I could tell you why but that's a secret...

lore. literally just lore. (and somewhat more flexibility with the story)

 

[skip.knox]

Well, if you're going to postulate a planet that exists for hundreds of trillions of years, you're already way beyond anything that needs explaining. This is all pure invention. The universe itself is not that old.

 

[pmmg]

Even a Trillion years old would do that, now that you brought it up.

 

[thatoneguywho-]

Well, if you're going to postulate a planet that exists for hundreds of trillions of years, you're already way beyond anything that needs explaining. This is all pure invention. The universe itself is not that old.

Fantasy universe

 

[JBCrowson]

For me (and of course this is only one person's view) fantasy asks the reader to set aside some of what they know about the world and substitute some alternate rules of the writer's instead. However there's only a certain amount of setting aside the rules of our world you can ask me to do, before what you create becomes uncomfortably unfamiliar. When you hit that point, you've lost me for sure, and no matter how well you describe your world, no matter what plot twists, character tensions, snappy dialog you put in, it won't rescue your book for me.

Why did I say all that, because writers have a limited amount of rule swapping, and using some of it on something that would probably work just as well orders of magnitude shorter is a waste. In 100 million years the RW has had multiple climate changes, stochastic events, evolved lineages of plants and animals that dominated then fell away to fossils. And you're talking about a stasis of development a million times longer than that. The star the planet is near would have gone supernova in that time, and even if it hadn't, the landscape will have eroded to dust, sedimented, been compressed back into rock and repeated that cycle countless times. With no tech to stop it, everything the folk living there built, would have been destroyed along with the landscape. They would have to manage their population numbers very carefully, which without tech would be a challenge. It would be too easy to overbreed, eat all the food and wipe themselves out. So in one idea you have for me, (and again this is just my two cents) overdrawn your 'set-aside-what-you-know-account' to the degree that I just can't stick with the story.

 

[skip.knox]

Yes, exactly, onegury. So an explanation isn't really needed, any more than one needs to explain the ecological balance of a world with dragons and dire wolves. We just take it as given. I didn't really mean it as a criticism. It was more a reaction to posing the background story as a response to a question. I'm suggesting few readers would ask.

As a medievalist, I am struck by how many times people view the Middle Ages as an era of stagnation. But I try to breathe deeply and let it go. <grin>

 

[pmmg]

What is the reason you wish it to be more than a trillion years? Why wont a million or a 100k be suficient?

Our own sun will be gone in way less than a trillion years. Scary to think about. Will humanity be there to see it, or will we be long gone? Both answers are terrifying.

 

[thatoneguywho-]

For me (and of course this is only one person's view) fantasy asks the reader to set aside some of what they know about the world and substitute some alternate rules of the writer's instead. However there's only a certain amount of setting aside the rules of our world you can ask me to do, before what you create becomes uncomfortably unfamiliar. When you hit that point, you've lost me for sure, and no matter how well you describe your world, no matter what plot twists, character tensions, snappy dialog you put in, it won't rescue your book for me.

Why did I say all that, because writers have a limited amount of rule swapping, and using some of it on something that would probably work just as well orders of magnitude shorter is a waste. In 100 million years the RW has had multiple climate changes, stochastic events, evolved lineages of plants and animals that dominated then fell away to fossils. And you're talking about a stasis of development a million times longer than that. The star the planet is near would have gone supernova in that time, and even if it hadn't, the landscape will have eroded to dust, sedimented, been compressed back into rock and repeated that cycle countless times. With no tech to stop it, everything the folk living there built, would have been destroyed along with the landscape. They would have to manage their population numbers very carefully, which without tech would be a challenge. It would be too easy to overbreed, eat all the food and wipe themselves out. So in one idea you have for me, (and again this is just my two cents) overdrawn your 'set-aside-what-you-know-account' to the degree that I just can't stick with the story.

truthfully, my world isn't actually made up of the same basic materials as ours. most things are just magic. the sun is a creation of magic by the six first gods to sustain their experiment.

and yes, there is actually development, but all that keeps getting destroyed every time Abai invades, magic gains influence, or disasters shake the already unstable land. also, of course architecture and buildings have changed over time and of course species have changed, like, what?

and each piece has a divine guardian (a weaker form of divinity) to protect it. multiple of what you have described has happened, obviously, but humanity still survived it.

As a medievalist, I am struck by how many times people view the Middle Ages as an era of stagnation. But I try to breathe deeply and let it go. <grin>

there is not really stagnation in the sense of 'no tech is ever made,' but stagnation in the sense that all of it keeps getting destroyed.

What is the reason you wish it to be more than a trillion years? Why wont a million or a 100k be suficient?

Our own sun will be gone in way less than a trillion years. Scary to think about. Will humanity be there to see it, or will we be long gone? Both answers are terrifying.

i kind of misspoke. the UNIVERSE is two hundred trillion years old, and the planet is like around 80T.

because its a fantasy world, and magic lasts a long time, and i don't really want a titanically strong magic seal to break in like a thousand years, which underplays the sheer power of magic and makes the world much younger and unrealistic to magic.

 

[Prince of Spires]

In the end, it doesn't matter how old your world is. Anything over 1.000-ish years old is the same from a story perspective. You can't tell that whole story anyway, so for a reader 10.000 is the same as 100.000 and 1.000.000 and 1.000.000.000.000.000. It's along time ago, and stuff happened, but that's not relevant to the story.

The setting sounds interesting. So, what's the story?

 

[skip.knox]

Also, any world older than the parameters of the story can be any age at all. It simply won't matter because no one will ever see it or know about it. I can say this magic relic comes from a hundred years before the current story, or a thousand years, or a million years. They're just numbers. I agree with the Prince at some point the number becomes so absurd it attracts attention to itself rather than to the story in hand. I would try not to do that, in the same spirit of, for example, not making my giants a million feet tall.

 

[El_d_ray]

I think the explanation for the lack of tech works here, but I wonder where people come from? Because I don't really see the reason for them to evolve naturally in this kind of setting. Where they created by someone else? Or elementals came to this world when early human happen to exist already?

 

[thatoneguywho-]

Also, any world older than the parameters of the story can be any age at all. It simply won't matter because no one will ever see it or know about it. I can say this magic relic comes from a hundred years before the current story, or a thousand years, or a million years. They're just numbers. I agree with the Prince at some point the number becomes so absurd it attracts attention to itself rather than to the story in hand. I would try not to do that, in the same spirit of, for example, not making my giants a million feet tall.

I started this whole thing on a lore website lol

 

[thatoneguywho-]

I think the explanation for the lack of tech works here, but I wonder where people come from? Because I don't really see the reason for them to evolve naturally in this kind of setting. Where they created by someone else? Or elementals came to this world when early human happen to exist already?

similar to Christian story of creation but many more were made at once.

 

[El_d_ray]

similar to Christian story of creation but many more were made at once.

You previously mentioned:
>and then, Abai emerged. the people began to distrust the elementals.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, what exactly tipped the scales? How the system lost it's balance?

 

[thatoneguywho-]

You previously mentioned:
>and then, Abai emerged. the people began to distrust the elementals.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, what exactly tipped the scales? How the system lost it's balance?

in my lore, the elementals specifically are the only humans able to ascend to divinity. Abai was an elemental, and she just tried to destroy the world, so I think you can see why they didnt like the elementals anymore

 

[thatoneguywho-]

In the end, it doesn't matter how old your world is. Anything over 1.000-ish years old is the same from a story perspective. You can't tell that whole story anyway, so for a reader 10.000 is the same as 100.000 and 1.000.000 and 1.000.000.000.000.000. It's along time ago, and stuff happened, but that's not relevant to the story.

The setting sounds interesting. So, what's the story?

sort of an adventure fantasy turning into a heroes vs dark lord story then suddenly taking a really dark tun and killing off important characters to become a high fantasy war type.

 

[El_d_ray]

in my lore, the elementals specifically are the only humans able to ascend to divinity. Abai was an elemental, and she just tried to destroy the world, so I think you can see why they didnt like the elementals anymore

Why was she tried to destroy the world?