please listen to my ridiculous plan

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Oh, that and Dan looks like a really cute monkey when he does his monkey face.
There is a reason why I married the guy

PS. snap photos next time

[Zod]

Oh, that and Dan looks like a really cute monkey when he does his monkey face.
There is a reason why I married the guy

PS. snap photos next time

[starku]

Wat

Have you hacked my account pig

OH SHI-

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Actually you know, I remember Shroomy complaining about world building guys on SDN being really obsessed with technical stuff. And we had a discussion about how it misses the point of what 'world building' is really about. And yet just yesterday I found myself sort of mindlessly developing the mechanics of the Xenosurf setting pretty much by accident. It just came so easily (compared to actually writing the fucking thing), and I couldn't help but wonder if this is part of the reason why it's such a common thing: because it's just really easy.

This feels like 'news at eleven' stuff but whatevs

[starku]

dude when i made up space poirot

it was all about HOW TO MAKE UP TECHNOBABBLE TO EXPLAIN BOW WAVES IN SPACE

thing is it didn't stop there and it went into other aspects of the stuff as well

there's nothing wrong with technical detail

there's just a problem with entirely technical detail with no contextual content

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Yeah I suppose you're right. Knowing how things work 'behind the scenes' isn't bad and sometimes you can weave it into the plot, and in a broader sense people buy things like the Star Wars Visual Guides or whatever. In my Gundam fanfic the characters were supposed to be actual astronauts and so would sometimes have discussions like 'well strictly speaking the sun won't melt you but you are not really designed for this kind of close approach', and in Xenosurf one of the main characters is a scientist who is trying to solve a cosmic problem, so you can separate technical detail from stuff like 'the AN-GO-64 FCS could do this and this due to this and was a big improvement over the AN-GO-63 Weber Weber Weber'.

[Shroom Man 777]

i'm trying to refigure out how to build universes

cause i dunno the whole old fashioned way of making hueg articles of everything, while it works for worldbuilding as it is... i dunno, the articles and paragraphs, i dunno

like, sure you've got asimov or gibson or tolkien talking and corresponding with other folks at length about their vision of what they see in their worlds and rattling on

but i don't think asimov ever wrote paragraphs of this-kind-of-ship-does-this or worlds-of-this-sector-of-robotopia in article format when he made his universe

i don't imagine gibson also categorizing the different varieties and subtypes of ICE or shits in article paragraph form and the closest thing i think we would have to that from him would be two cyberpunk hackers talking about ICEs while they snort cyberpunk cyber-meth or something

they kinda blended it with the whole creation of stories and shit

so i am having trouble returning to the old format or style of article-based worldbuilding-writing because... i am dissatisfied? or in having appreciated art and shit thanks to you guise, strak et al, i have just discovered how hard it is to actually write something decent or satisfactory?

or maybe i'm just burned out i dunno

i'm trying to figure out the volition of building worlds

[adr-admin]

i could never really get into the article thing. my preference is more like random commentary at random in a thread dedicated to random thoughts and whatnot (b/c that takes the least effort really)

tho i'm thinking a bunch of short stories that kinda highlight one area at a time to show the larger universe is betterist of all

except the short story is fucking hard to write



btw yall want this moved up to nt yah??

[Shroom Man 777]

tho i'm thinking a bunch of short stories that kinda highlight one area at a time to show the larger universe is betterist of all

except the short story is fucking hard to write

this is what my line of thinking is slanting towards too

[starku]

i'm all about vingettes

i mean i'll have some kind of image or thing i want to do and do it and that's all

short fiction rules

and it frees you from the need to clumsily string a narrative between all your different ideas

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Short fiction can be powerful. The novella is probably the most powerful form of fiction, all things considered. I still like the challenge of building a larger, more expansive narrative. I kind of feel it's the better place to build characters.

[Nietzslime]

Actually you know, I remember Shroomy complaining about world building guys on SDN being really obsessed with technical stuff. And we had a discussion about how it misses the point of what 'world building' is really about. And yet just yesterday I found myself sort of mindlessly developing the mechanics of the Xenosurf setting pretty much by accident. It just came so easily (compared to actually writing the fucking thing), and I couldn't help but wonder if this is part of the reason why it's such a common thing: because it's just really easy.

This feels like 'news at eleven' stuff but whatevs

i dunno about that

i suspect it's just because building systems can be fun

a system that has required clever planning to achieve certain results is a cool feather in your cap

it is not shameful to play conceptual lego or enjoy work in computer programming

the problem is mis-weighing how important a system is to the success in a story and the antendant weakness in writing stuff like character that is more exterior-focused than worldbuilding, which is fundamentally, not a self-indulgent process, but certainly an interior-focused one

[starku]

I think the different stage or lens of a longer piece actually makes it more texhnically difficult to sell characters

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

I think the different stage or lens of a longer piece actually makes it more texhnically difficult to sell characters

I like a challenge

I mean I think you're right, but if you can do it effectively for longer I think that can really connect with the audience.

the problem is mis-weighing how important a system is to the success in a story and the antendant weakness in writing stuff like character that is more exterior-focused than worldbuilding, which is fundamentally, not a self-indulgent process, but certainly an interior-focused one

Yeah, that's probably a better way to put it.

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

You know something I'd like to try is building stories where the meaning of the events are read in entirely by the audience. Xenosurf is about a pair of girls and their colourful JRPG party careening around two galaxies fighting vast conspiracies and implacable wave of existence ending glass monsters. It's a story about destiny, reincarnation, memory, surfing, dreams, giant robots and love. Those are things I think might resonate with people, to one degree or the other, but the events are variously causing or stopping Third Impact. And I mean, what does Third Impact as an event mean for people? Who knows.



This got rapidly incoherent, but I think what I'm trying to say is that I want to take a weird, kind-of-incoherent cosmic event and write it in such a way that people are able to say 'it means something to me'.

[Stofsk]

then go do that son

[Manus Dei]

Yeah I suppose you're right. Knowing how things work 'behind the scenes' isn't bad and sometimes you can weave it into the plot, and in a broader sense people buy things like the Star Wars Visual Guides or whatever. In my Gundam fanfic the characters were supposed to be actual astronauts and so would sometimes have discussions like 'well strictly speaking the sun won't melt you but you are not really designed for this kind of close approach', and in Xenosurf one of the main characters is a scientist who is trying to solve a cosmic problem, so you can separate technical detail from stuff like 'the AN-GO-64 FCS could do this and this due to this and was a big improvement over the AN-GO-63 Weber Weber Weber'.

I imagine "Weber Weber Weber" sounds like a cross between white noise and the adults talking sound from Charlie Brown.

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

There's a passage I like, where the narrative describes a certain new type of missile and the design process behind it, then concludes with 'none of which was relevant to xyz fleet at this moment'. Like it actually says that.

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Hey can a pinkname please save my thread

Thanks

[Zod]

took a minute to remember how to do that

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Okay I feel the need to mind map out a whole bunch of stuff for Xenosurf and I am a sucker for doing that sort of thing in public.

Some basic data: it is the 777th kalpa of the Age of Aquarius. The setting is the Great Surf, a collision of two galaxies, which is home to the Aquarian Sangha, the singular sociopolitical entity of the time. Its people are the Aquarians, who are descended from the Pisceans of Age of Pisces (ie. us). They originate in one of the two galaxies of the Great Surf, while the other once previously hosted an alien species, the Dasyu. For as long as there has been a Great Surf, the Dasyu have only been an inferred existence: ruins and relics exist in that galaxy which indicates that they did exist but have since disappeared.

The connecting element of the various worlds and people of the Sangha is the Akasha. At it's most basic, it's a network of communication and you could liken it to the internet, but whatever its origins, it has since infiltrated time, space and the collective unconscious. A network built on human dreams, it is both physical and metaphysical: as it is a component of an Aquarian's seven-fold soul (ie. chakra), using the Akasha is a matter of just thinking and it requires no interface device. Capable of transferring information, energy and matter throughout the Great Surf instantly (ie. prapti), an Aquarian can use the Akasha Manifestation Principle to enhance their abilities (siddhis), creature nature interferences (mantra) which can do the mundane such as throw lightning bolts to the less mundane like forecasting probable futures, weaving material objects and even living beings out of pure data, psychometrically recreating the past as physical reality and almost anything else which can be imagined. The Dasyu also had an equivalent which still persists: the Akasha incorporating the dormant alien network into itself.

The Sangha belongs to the Sakra, a kind of elaborately important sovereign who lives in total seclusion. All the big decisions are made by the Satsang, which is more or less intergalactic parliament. Executive power in the Satsang is shared by the Ministers of Left and Right. The Sangha is split into castes. Nobility are those with the hereditary ability to use Regalia, non-physical devices which improve a person's ability to manipulate the Akasha. They are further split by sociocultural beliefs about purity into the upper-tier Raja and their warrior-caste cousins the Kshatriya. Common people are split into Vaishya and Shudra - those who take responsibility and those who don't. As one of the main characters is a Buddhist priest, I've been trying to work out where that sort of person sits in the system, but I'm not really sure. The caste system is a cultural artifact and not really as important as it used to be, though hundreds of kalpa as top dog have left the Raja with a whole lot material power, and the divide between noble and common in terms of the Akasha Manifestation Principle is insurmountable, even with cutting edge AMP Drives which attempt to replicate the abilities of Regalia. The armed force of the Sangha is the Deadly Expeditionary Violence Association (DEVA).

Threatening all this are the mysterious and definitely hostile beings called the Ajata. Appearing to be creatures constructed from plates of black glass, filigree and smokeless fire, they emerge seemingly at will throughout the real and the Akasha and violate all principles understood by Aquarians. They are seemingly impossible to communicate with, and their motivations are almost totally unclear - no one can even agree as to whether they work in concert or not. They are extremely dangerous, with abilities that rival the best technologies available to the Sangha and seemingly inexhaustible numbers. Without the presence of a certain technology then the cannot even be harmed by conventional weapons and their presence distorts the Akasha. Even more alarmingly, as the number of Ajata in a region of space increases, the risk of reaching the Limit of Questions increases. When the Limit is reached, space becomes sealed and permits no interference, and completely falls away from the Akasha, and cannot be recreated through its psychometric properties. As such, the Ajata present not only a material threat, but appear to be able to negate existence itself. Finding a way to stop the Ajata from destroying the Great Surf is the core objective of almost all the protagonists and antagonists of Xenosurf.

For more random information, Aquarians have a cultural aversion to shoes and it's rare to find someone who will wear anything more than sandals. They're also capable of photosynthesis so they don't tend to wear much. DEVA's uniform for men is just board shorts, for example. Raja tend to wear more clothing to make a nebulous statement about their position in society.

okay I have had enough for now

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Anyway, continuing on, I guess I'll describe the various characters and their rough position in the plot and story. I don't really want to give too much away because I don't know, but anyway:

Arjuna Fudo - The girl from Ithaca. A young Shudra who spends most of her days surfing and lazing around on the beach (to the annoyance of her grandfather) or singing out her youth and causing mischief (to the annoyance of her elder brother). Happy-go-lucky and kind of frenetic, basically just your ordinarygidget who by apparently sheer chance comes into contact with forces within the Sangha working towards a new future without the Ajata, and in the process becomes tied up in numerous plots. As becomes steadily more apparent with time, Juna is more than she appears and is tied to a cycle that has existed since the Age of Pisces. Despite this, she is still an ordinary girl who is becoming a part of things much vaster than she has previously experienced. Who she is, where she comes from and where she's going are totally central to the plot and story.

A very straightforward kind of person who isn't very good with complex things like mantra, instead preferring to hit her problems with her bokuto. Not very good at holding grudges, but very good at making messes. I like to associate her with the Star of the Major Arcana.

Achilles Kaleido Arcadia Kotodama Acedia Kirin - The twin-tailed, collar-popping genius leading the Amita Project. Kind of broody, but elite even within her family, which is elite even by the standards of the Raja. Like most Kirins, Achilles is a very accomplished architect but unlike most she is also a polymath with an at times bewildering number of specialisations - mechanical engineering, high energy theoretical neurophysics, ontology, Akasha data systems, metaphysical biology, block transfer computing etc etc. She has been placed in charge of the Amita Project, with the responsibility to create a weapon which can defeat the Ajata utterly. Killi's confusion as to what she has actually built leads her to question precisely what the Amita Project is for, though she is still proud of her work. She has an affinity for ice and lightning mantra, and lives on the Kerykeion, a vimana of her own design. Her relationship with Arjuna is a defining aspect of the story, and the plot more or less kicks off when she discovers the existence of the Kegen organisation operating in the shadows.

Karna Fudo - Juna's elder brother and long suffering caretaker. He is supposed to be a Buddhist priest, but he's mostly a hopeless sex addict. his grandfather thinks he's a total disappointment but at the same time totally indispensable because he's so popular with the gidgets. He is having an affair with one of the scientists who is working on the Amita Project, and ends up tagging along on Killi's quest to uncover the truth of the project entirely because he wants to look after his sister in the wake of narratively inevitable tragedy. Not a strong kind of person, but adept with the Akasha due to his training as a priest.

Soma Setepenre Disraeli Sebastos - A Kshatriya on secondment to TELOS from DEVA. He is an ASTRA (giant robot) pilot and serves as one of Killi's bodyguards as part of a highly complex mesh of political and family agreements. He doesn't really like the job much but it looks good on a marriage resume. He is skilled but not a veteran, and has a great deal of expectation heaped upon him due to his father and elder brother. He specialises in fire and defensive mantra and predominantly fights with his size changing staff. His mother died when he was very young, and he wears her jacket as a momento. It is a very nice jacket.

Charlotte Sunshine - A little younger than Juna, and a totally rebellious anarchist with greater skill in manipulating Akasha data systems than Killi. She is a member of an outcaste counterculture and tags along in order to survive ... exactly why Achilles lets her do so is a little bit of a mystery to others in the party, but there are reasons. Dresses a bit like a pirate.

Rhinegold WS Device - A highly insightful and refined bartender. In a world where data entities freely weaved from the aether are the current mundane, Rhinegold's elaborate smart matter construction (based on, I don't know, femtomachines or something) is endearingly quaint and extremely obsolete. Being built in a time of myth does mean that he has seen a great deal of the universe and his information is vital to Killi's quest to uncover the truth about Kegen, as well as Arjuna. Despite being flat out obsolete, he has honed his skills over the course of entire kalpa and has seen pretty much every trick in the book.

Semyaza Kozmike Svarga Kagutsuchi Superbia Kirin - Killi's elder sister, and the rival against which she measures all her successes. Characteristically talks in a way which people might consider arrogant, but for her family and friends she is just endearingly frank - if Semyaza says something like 'you aren't capable of moving me back one step', she is being totally sincere. She always has the capabilities to back up a claim she makes. An extremely important figure in the Sangha, and leader of the special organisation TELOS, which has the Amita Project within its portfolio. Secretly she is a member of Kegen, though she holds a nebulous position within it - others refer to her as being 'the will of evolution' or something similar.

Rinne - One of the children of the Sakra and the leader of Kegen. An extraordinarily calm and collected individual who is totally driven by his need to create a new future for the Aquarian people. Whether he considers himself a messiah or simply a component of a greater plan is ambiguous. He is the only character who is essentially 'disconnected' from the rest of the cast, coming from within a secluded world which even the Raja cannot normally touch.

Cato xyz Disraeli Sebastos - Soma's father, and currently sitting Minister of the Left. He is the chairman of the Satsang Subcommittee on Ajata Countermeasures which oversees TELOS and a number of other Ajata related groups and projects. He comes from a new generation of Kshatriya that have built careers and legends outside of combat. He is tightly connected with Kirin Line, and is a member of Kegen.

Leo Magnus Disraeli Sebastos - Soma's elder brother and Killi's fiance. A totally exceptional ASTRA pilot who leads the 108th Independent Mobile Strike Fighter Wing (the infamous 'Skull Squadron'). Their relationship as brothers mirrors the relationship between Achilles and Semyaza. Extremely loyal to his father and so commonly deployed on covert government business which needs application of questionably legal force. Though Killi is not sure what she thinks of him, he is genuinely in love with her. Though marriages between Kshatriya and Raja are becoming more common, his engagement to a Kirin is still highly unusual. He plays more of a role in The Pacific State.

Krishna Fudo - Juna and Karna's grandfather. Despite being a Shudra, he was once celebrated as a sword saint and fought innumerable battles. As he grew older, he became a priest in order to find peace. He resurrected his invincible techniques in an attempt to give Arjuna some direction in her life, but she has not been able to comprehend his teachings - partly because she's a bit dense but mostly because Karna is a real grump. His sword is rumoured to be a piece of real steel.

Enoch Kirin (né Skylark) is Semyaza's husband and personal assistant. Though his appearance is cold and his interpersonal relationships perfunctory, he has managed to genuinely fall in love. As such he is endlessly loyal, an utterly tireless and always presence nuissance to the less devoted among TELOS. Skylark Line is not very influential, but very well respected as Raja that produce kannushi for the most major shrines and temples; a very 'safe' marriage for Kirin Line. In his youth, Enoch served as a shrine attendant and has a dual honours in theosophy and ontology, though in the latter he cannot compare with his wife. He is Semyaza's personal bodyguard and an ASTRA ace in his own right.

Wow Jesus I hadn't actually realised how many of these chumps there were until now. There are other important characters which I haven't mentioned, but they can't be mentioned for various reasons. There are are some iffy elements here - particularly in regards to what the Kegen organisation actually is (is it secret? I don't know). The use of Buddhism is something of a placeholder. Aesthetically it's similar, much as the other religion in the setting is aesthetically similar to Shinto, but it would be totally goofy if they were the actual belief systems of the Age of Aquarius.

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

Okay I am back again because I have shit on my mind and I don't want to bother Zak and Stark about it with oblique references.

Anyway for a long time I was working on a fanfic called Mobile Suit Sol Gundam. I started it way back before I wised up and so it was just one of those things which got bigger and bigger as I found more ideas and characters that I wanted to explore, to the point where it simply couldn't be novel. For a while I entertained the idea of a sort of 'light novel' approach, where I would devote a novella length thing to single story idea, so it would be episodic, building on the things in previous volumes towards the climax. That wasn't the greatest idea I had. In the end, it was all too big.

But you know I still liked it, in as much as it existed. There was a lot of stuff about characters being overwhelmed by the figures of their past and revenge not solving anything and the collective karma of humankind being measured against that of the descendants of the self-replicating machines we built a long time ago as weapons but were too guilty to destroy in the aftermath etc etc. It was a setting which had a lot of life for me and there were things there that I'd like to revisit. So I'm going to try to revisit it.

The original premise was this: a pair of teenagers accidentally get wrapped up in the business of a mercenary spaceship which is home to four of the baddest mobile suit pilots in the solar system, including the pilot of the Maitreya Gundam, the flagship of the story. They were the primary viewpoint characters in the continued adventures of this ship and its mercenary crew as they traveled from planet to planet doing jobs that ranged from as simple as security on the first relativistic starship to as ambiguous as acting as the ultimate force multiplier in a war between relatively primitive nations on the remains of Earth. It all built up to the aforementioned thing with the self-replicating machines and a final showdown with the mysterious Vairocana Gundam.

I've always liked that set up, with the main character being disconnected from the giant robot fighting, an outsider looking in at the rivalries and comradeships of what was essentially a whole other world in a lot of ways. But if I really want to visit Sol Gundam again, I think I need to start a little from scratch. Being as I've been watching Gundam AGE and Eureka Seven AO, and with the next episode of Unicorn Gundam on the horizon, I kind of feel the need to channel some of that 'boy meets robot' magic (but with a girl as opposed to a boy).

But you know I don't really have much. I know that the story will either be set on or start at Venus. I know a girl called Skylark Freebird will meet a robot called the Maitreya Gundam. I know there will a small ship home to a small group of misfits not affiliated with any particular group. Not much else.

Signing off

[Oxymoron]

Just throw shit at the canvas and see what stick off.


Interesting ideas. I'd comment in more depth, but I haven't seen a single Gundam episode and the only robit show I've ever watched was Neon Genesis Fucking Evangelion, so I don't know if what I could say would be really helpful.