can I just pick your brains? World building alert

Honalo · Aug 25, 2009

This is somewhat long. Apologies.

I'm in a little quandary. A YA book that started out as a filler in between editing the other book I'm writing has now become the primary WIP because methinks it has better marketability than the first work (and far shorter word count).

So I'll preface everything this way by starting out with the year the book is set in: 2566. Now at the time I was writing this I didn't mean 2566 on Earth - I meant 2566 in the new world I was creating. Except that a peer critiquer read that (she's not a fantasy writer but still an avid reader and writer) and took it to mean a future earth.

So I mulled on that, thinking it would be intriguing to make it a future earth and this is how I changed my plot:

Demons entered the world in 2085, bringing with them a war that they had been fighting in their own dimension, as well as alternative energy streams that interferred with our own technologies, rendering useless our satellites, our Internet - virtually anything that depended on our electro-magnetic fields and thus wiping out all forms of communication and destroying our world as we know it.

So by the year 2566, all this would be ancient history. But I'm stumped. How then do I present a world which is in the future but never experienced Internet or radio or telephone communication? How do they speak, dress, etc.? What is the configuration of land and seas? I know you'll say this is my world and I can do what I want but ... if you're talking a future earth here - a subject that I've never broached - some shred of description has to be based on scientific evidence or fact, doesn't it?

Well, the way I have it is: they've regressed (or progressed as it were) into a 1950s/1960s society - a society which, in our own time, would only have had the telephone and TV and radio as the primary everyday technologies. They drive dilapidated vehicles (with alternative fuels) and communicate through magical doors that can open upon whatever scene they want to view - magic supplied courtesy of, inadvertantly, the demons who had invaded earlier.

I have my MCs discussing ruins of metal dishes and lattice towers. Part of me thinks I should get involved in how they view things like flow of information, have some sort of political scape that is either for or against information but again, the demons' attack is 500 years now in the past. This is a society that everyone is used to (and by the way, the demons ended their battle long before this story takes place - they now live on the fringes of the world they destroyed, each with their own sects, plotting their second advance on one another {they're brothers}).

OK, I'm going around and around and around ...
Anyone with any thoughts?

PeterL · Aug 25, 2009

Mela said:
So I'll preface everything this way by starting out with the year the book is set in: 2566. Now at the time I was writing this I didn't mean 2566 on Earth - I meant 2566 in the new world I was creating. Except that a peer critiquer read that (she's not a fantasy writer but still an avid reader and writer) and took it to mean a future earth.

So I mulled on that, thinking it would be intriguing to make it a future earth and this is how I changed my plot:

Demons entered the world in 2085, bringing with them a war that they had been fighting in their own dimension, as well as alternative energy streams that interferred with our own technologies, rendering useless our satellites, our Internet - virtually anything that depended on our electro-magnetic fields and thus wiping out all forms of communication and destroying our world as we know it.

So by the year 2566, all this would be ancient history. But I'm stumped. How then do I present a world which is in the future but never experienced Internet or radio or telephone communication? How do they speak, dress, etc.? What is the configuration of land and seas? I know you'll say this is my world and I can do what I want but ... if you're talking a future earth here - a subject that I've never broached - some shred of description has to be based on scientific evidence or fact, doesn't it?

The addition of demons would change things in unpredictable ways, assuming that they were traditional demons from Hell. If they are something else, then the change would be less, but there probably would be changes in speech patterns, including absorbing some words of Demonic. Remember that 2566 will only be 500 years from now. Five hundred years ago was 1509. At that time English was in its Modern form, the Americas had been found and colonies were beginning, printing was more than 50 years old, etc. Unless the demons changed the geology, the land would be as it is now with minor alterations. As a guide for changes imagine going back 500 years and the changes that you would see. Eveerything was different then, but it had clear connection with now. As to what changes oyu want to write about, that's something for you to decide. It would be a mistake to try to describe every small difference.

Well, the way I have it is: they've regressed (or progressed as it were) into a 1950s/1960s society - a society which, in our own time, would only have had the telephone and TV and radio as the primary everyday technologies. They drive dilapidated vehicles (with alternative fuels) and communicate through magical doors that can open upon whatever scene they want to view - magic supplied courtesy of, inadvertantly, the demons who had invaded earlier.

I have my MCs discussing ruins of metal dishes and lattice towers. Part of me thinks I should get involved in how they view things like flow of information, have some sort of political scape that is either for or against information but again, the demons' attack is 500 years now in the past. This is a society that everyone is used to (and by the way, the demons ended their battle long before this story takes place - they now live on the fringes of the world they destroyed, each with their own sects, plotting their second advance on one another {they're brothers}).

OK, I'm going around and around and around ...
Anyone with any thoughts?

Is the story about the changes, or is there a story that you set in 2566?

Honalo · Aug 25, 2009

PeterL said:
Is the story about the changes, or is there a story that you set in 2566?

The story is set in 2566 and the over-arching theme centers on communication - how these people communicate are through doors (the book's called Seller of the Doors) and one of the demon lords is trying to use the doors to command all the magic (and they're not demons from hell).

My problem is, I've never done a futuristic earth, so I'm completely stumped. I don't feel as though I quite have the freedom that I would with a world totally of my imagination.

The alternative would be to NOT make it earth, but I think there'd be more interest in it being earth.

But you have a good idea Pete, in going back 500 years to what the world was like, and applying it forward. Thanks for your help.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 25, 2009

It's not really going to be a futuristic earth, though, even though it's IN the future. Nothing will look futuristic-y and sleek because there are no computers to aid design. If they need to do computing, they could use something like Babbage's mechanical analytical engine.

Think about all the stuff they won't have and all the ways that magic may be able to make up for it--phones, internet and tv like you said. Cars will be more like cars in, what, the fifties, or earlier? With no electric lights--will they have gaslights, or can you only drive them before dark?

Without electric lights, what do people use to see? In a lot of ways it's going to be 1880s style living, before Edison and Tesla did their thang. Lots of stuff that we cheaply use electronically-automated machines to make have to be done mostly by human labor along with machines--packaged food, clothing, toys, tools, etc. Medicine will be in a pretty primitive state as well. I hope that helps

Honalo · Aug 25, 2009

Yes, exactly Kitty Pryde, it's more like a past earth. Except in my book they have electricity - wonders out loud: is that possible without electromagnetic waves??
But now I'm also thinking: do I have to address things like, nuclear weapons, how mankind tried to fight the demons. That sort of thing doesn't apply for the purposes of this book but I'm envisioning a critic or someone (agent, perhaps?) along way the asking, why didn't you address this? Or this?
For the story taking place in this book, the only thing that matters are the alternative streams of energy and the doors. That's it. So should I even think about muddying it up with a lot of other peripheral stuff of how the world fared with demon lords over the last 500 years? or leave it alone?

Sarpedon · Aug 25, 2009

Wait a minute: Did their arrival cause some kind of EMP pulse that destroyed all electronic equipment, or has reality fundamentally changed, rendering all such things impossible?

If the destruction of electronic devices is a result of radiation pulses, then you could build more robust systems: During the cold war the USSR used old fashioned vacuum tubes in some of their military hardware to make them more resistant to such things. Its likely that such things would have no effect on, say 1940s level of technology, or even 1960s.

Now if you are talking about a world 'without electromagnetic waves,' then not only is no electricity is possible, no life is possible: The light and heat from the sun, the chemical bonds that hold our bodies together, all of these are all dependent on electromagnetism.

Higgins · Aug 25, 2009

Sarpedon said:
Wait a minute: Did their arrival cause some kind of EMP pulse that destroyed all electronic equipment, or has reality fundamentally changed, rendering all such things impossible?

If the destruction of electronic devices is a result of radiation pulses, then you could build more robust systems: During the cold war the USSR used old fashioned vacuum tubes in some of their military hardware to make them more resistant to such things. Its likely that such things would have no effect on, say 1940s level of technology, or even 1960s.

Now if you are talking about a world 'without electromagnetic waves,' then not only is no electricity is possible, no life is possible: The light and heat from the sun, the chemical bonds that hold our bodies together, all of these are all dependent on electromagnetism.

In fact since the electromagetic field is an aspect of the electro-weak unification, without electromagnatism you'd have a universe full of strong-force particles only. Just quarks globbing up.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 25, 2009

Mela said:
Yes, exactly Kitty Pryde, it's more like a past earth. Except in my book they have electricity - wonders out loud: is that possible without electromagnetic waves??
But now I'm also thinking: do I have to address things like, nuclear weapons, how mankind tried to fight the demons. That sort of thing doesn't apply for the purposes of this book but I'm envisioning a critic or someone (agent, perhaps?) along way the asking, why didn't you address this? Or this?
For the story taking place in this book, the only thing that matters are the alternative streams of energy and the doors. That's it. So should I even think about muddying it up with a lot of other peripheral stuff of how the world fared with demon lords over the last 500 years? or leave it alone?

When the demons show up and knock out all the EMFs, your nukes don't work, but it doesn't matter, cause neither do your airplanes or missile guidance systems. You don't need to elaborate on 500 years of human/demon relations, but you do need to know how they reached their current peace/quasi-peace/violent police state/whatever.

Most electric current is generated by changing a magnetic field around a conductor. If you 'don't have electromagnetic waves' as you say, you won't have light either. And all the plants will die and so will the animals and humans. But they will have already died because their hearts won't beat without electrical signals! But it doesn't matter because the earth will lose its magnetic field, and I'm no geologist, but the earth would probably explode. Anyways, we're all sitting around in the dark with our hearts stopped surrounded by dead plants while the earth explodes, and that's probably not the setting you're going for...

Maybe you're thinking of something more like an electromagnetic bomb, but constantly occurring? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_bomb If that was the case, you could have electricity but not electronics. But you could build and use electronics in a Faraday cage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage And keep in mind that the electricity you had would be more unsafe and unpredictable, as it wouldn't be controlled by electronic monitoring like it is nowadays.

Honalo · Aug 25, 2009

Sarpedon said:
Now if you are talking about a world 'without electromagnetic waves,' then not only is no electricity is possible, no life is possible: The light and heat from the sun, the chemical bonds that hold our bodies together, all of these are all dependent on electromagnetism.

I was afraid of that - something in the back of my mind told me there'd be no life without electromagnetism. Then there's no way this could be earth. It would have to be another world entirely in which various energy streams conflict with one another ... OR, it could be earth, which has taken a huge hit from the energy streams the demons bring in ... but, no, that wouldn't work either because you would think they'd have devised a way in 500 years to combat that.

Ruv Draba · Aug 25, 2009

You can tweak around it Mela -- and it can look just like earth but still act differently.

You don't have to take out all electromagnetism. You could have light, UV, infra-red, but not radio-waves, microwaves. Why not? Does it really matter? Maybe demons feed on that energy. Maybe their magic stops it.

Without radio and microwaves you have no regular TV, radio or cellphones, no GPS, radar or microwave ovens. You can have electric circuits though (so, refrigerators), and if you're clever you can have optic fibers -- so fibre-based telephones, TV, radio for those who can afford it -- maybe just the urban areas.

I get the sense that you're daunted by just how much world-design you need to do. Alas, but that's a cost that everyone has to pay for this sort of fiction. If you don't enjoy it, my suggestion is to use another setting.

If you want to see how post-apocalyptic worlds look, have a look at say The Amtrak Wars. It's futuristic post-apocalyptic with magic, but they're a bit more primitive than you want. The thing you might notice most is that writers create the settings they want then justify them. If you want dinosaurs, pop-tarts and ray-guns but everyone walking around nekkid and living in tents, you just need to come up with an explanation for that.

G'luck!

Honalo · Aug 25, 2009

Ruv Draba said:
You can tweak around it Mela -- and it can look just like earth but still act differently.

You don't have to take out all electromagnetism. You could have light, UV, infra-red, but not radio-waves, microwaves. Why not? Does it really matter? Maybe demons feed on that energy. Maybe their magic stops it.

Without radio and microwaves you have no regular TV, radio or cellphones, no GPS, radar or microwave ovens. You can have electric circuits though (so, refrigerators), and if you're clever you can have optic fibers -- so fibre-based telephones, TV, radio for those who can afford it -- maybe just the urban areas.

I get the sense that you're daunted by just how much world-design you need to do. Alas, but that's a cost that everyone has to pay for this sort of fiction. If you don't enjoy it, my suggestion is to use another setting.

If you want to see how post-apocalyptic worlds look, have a look at say The Amtrak Wars. It's futuristic post-apocalyptic with magic, but they're a bit more primitive than you want. The thing you might notice most is that writers create the settings they want then justify them. If you want dinosaurs, pop-tarts and ray-guns but everyone walking around nekkid and living in tents, you just need to come up with an explanation for that.

G'luck!

I think I'm daunted by how much I would need to put into the book for purposes of explaining how this new earth works - keeping in mind this isn't hard sci-fi, but YA fantasy.

It's not that I haven't built worlds before - I haven't built a future earth before, so as I said, I feel more constrained. So I've created the setting - I just want to make sure it makes sense.

I think I should pose this to an expert - maybe get in touch with someone at a university or NASA to get their opinion. But what you've said about partial knock out of electromagnetism makes sense.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 25, 2009

Mela said:
I think I'm daunted by how much I would need to put into the book for purposes of explaining how this new earth works - keeping in mind this isn't hard sci-fi, but YA fantasy.

It's not that I haven't built worlds before - I haven't built a future earth before, so as I said, I feel more constrained. So I've created the setting - I just want to make sure it makes sense.

I think I should pose this to an expert - maybe get in touch with someone at a university or NASA to get their opinion. But what you've said about partial knock out of electromagnetism makes sense.

I reckon anyone with a year of college physics can sort you out on this one

If you want to have electricity but not electronics, just say the demons (or they're magical doors) all create constant EMP pulses and thus electronics all get fried as they spread across the earth. For example.

Sarpedon · Aug 25, 2009

Hey, then you could go down to radio shack and fashion a demon detector from a length of stripped wire and one of those Ohm-meters! Does the church know about this?

Honalo · Aug 25, 2009

Kitty Pryde said:
I reckon anyone with a year of college physics can sort you out on this one If you want to have electricity but not electronics, just say the demons (or they're magical doors) all create constant EMP pulses and thus electronics all get fried as they spread across the earth. For example.

Anyone with two weeks of college physics would know more than I do.
I don't know who I was channeling when I thought up this plot ... it's so unlike anything I've done.

I've since sent an email to a scientist, EMF expert.

And I'm probably completely overthinking this and making it way harder than it should be but I appreciate your help - and everyone's for that matter.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 25, 2009

Sarpedon said:
Hey, then you could go down to radio shack and fashion a demon detector from a length of stripped wire and one of those Ohm-meters! Does the church know about this?

When your multimeter breaks, there's a demon nearby...but then you need to buy a new multimeter...

efkelley · Aug 25, 2009

You could be over-thinking it, but some of the best stories work out all the details and then never even mention them. They just show the characters acting out the story in the setting.

You can always use the old fallback of: All out stuff stopped working. We don't know why.

However, I gather you wanted more than that. Actually, finding out why might be a fun plot element, so you'll have to know the reasons even if the characters and readers won't.

I'd be interested to see what your scientist says. Electricity is a flow of electrons. We generate that flow through electromagnetism. If you can generate it some other way, (magic, say) then you could still have power. The trouble is that only technologies based on a flow of current would work. Light bulbs and heating elements are the only two I can think of. Everything else I can think of requires electromagnetism from basic telephones to computers. Electromagnets are the way we translate electric energy into mechanical energy in many many devices.

You *could* have steam power though. And electricity can provide the heat that boils the water. Although why you wouldn't just use wood is beyond me. It would depend on how your electricity was generated.

Anyway, apologies for the tangent. I do want to hear what your scientist says.

dgiharris · Aug 25, 2009

i would read some post apolcalyptic books to get a feel for how others have handled a future earth void of technology.

The problem with the future earth you are describing is that there are going to be a ton of plotholes that you are going to have to fill.

The biggest one in my mind is history and our technological progression.

If this world has magic, we would apply the scientific method to magic and come up with a BILLIZION inventions that surpass what we have today.

Unless you kill off 99% of the population and they essentially start over, the future world you are building would still be composed of scientists, engineers, doctors, etc. etc. and that amount of brain power would figure things out.

Basically, my gut reaction to all this is that it is possible, but you have some serious research and thinking to do to tie up all the plot holes and build a solid world.

For that reason, I would just create my own world so I don't have to bother.

but a future earth is always interesting as well.

Lastly, there was a book that detailed a planet colonized by human, however, this planet had a lifeforce that rendered our technology useless and as a result humans that landed there reverted to a more medieval setting.

The book is called Black Sun Rising, by C.S. Friedman. Read this book, it has a lot of what you are talking about and will give you great examples on how to deal with the problems you've mentioned. Incidentally, the book kicks ass.

.

Mel...

tjwriter · Aug 25, 2009

I'll say, I just see your people swapping out the stuff in museums. Things that used to work ages ago that can be used as templates to allow technology again vs. the stuff that worked until demons arrived.

Ruv Draba · Aug 25, 2009

Mela said:
I think I'm daunted by how much I would need to put into the book for purposes of explaining how this new earth works - keeping in mind this isn't hard sci-fi, but YA fantasy.

Exactly -- so don't get caught up in explanations. Instead focus on cool. If it's cool enough nobody will worry about why. You just wave your arms and talk about the phlobotenum. All fantasy from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars does this at some point.

I haven't built a future earth before, so as I said, I feel more constrained.

But it's not a future earth. It's a fantasy world called Earth which has some bits of our earth in it, whose history happens to include our own. It's nothing like any credible future of ours; we're just their past.

In fantasy you can literally take any world and graft Earth's past onto it. Look at Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time for an example. Or Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber. Or Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. Or Star Trek. Or Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire. All you do is take the world you want, add some historical records stitching it to our own world, add phlobotenum and let time pass.

So write the world you want. I'll guaran-dang-tee that you can stitch Earth into its past -- and if you can't, PM me and I'll show you how.

Honalo · Aug 26, 2009

Thanks Ruv - I might take you up on that.

Cyia · Aug 26, 2009

Maybe there was a phenomena that turned the planet into pockets of something like natural Faraday cages. This way you could have certain devices work in certain areas, but nowhere else.

(Yeah, it's not perfect because the redistributed electricity would electrocute anyone touching the outside surface, but I think disbelief can suspend that far.)

can I just pick your brains? World building alert

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PeterL

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