Conworld random thread

[Rounin Ryuuji]

As it happens, I’ve been thinking along very similar lines recently. Specifically, I’ve been wondering: how can one get an extraterrestrial world which can justifiably be inhabited by H. sapiens?

It would depend on whether or not you would want to imply that said humans (or humanoids; the population, if it is of long standing, would probably have diverged notably) had left Earth at some point in the past or not. If so, the seeding idea already mentioned would be good — one book I read (I think it was The Legend That Was Earth) also had as its premise that life with either a pre-prepared set of organisms that would adapt themselves to seeded planets, or else a predisposition for convergent evolution, had originated somewhere (I don't recall if it ever touched on where) in space, and been spread throughout the galaxy (or perhaps universe). It also had some odd notions about physics, too. With a fantasy, of course, you can do a great deal more with a great deal less justification (I imply all sorts of odd things about my own fantasy "humans" — I don't actually call them that in-setting, but rather just use the word in the internal language, since it's clear from the description they're meant to be fairly human-looking).

There are, incidentally, also the possibilities of convergent evolution (though this is quite wildly implausible outside a fantasy setting, or one that presupposes seeding with life predisposed to said convergent evolution), and of accidental transportation of humans and other Earth species through wormholes (this has already been mentioned, but it could be made also accidental; especially if the wormholes are sporadic, producing a sort of Telmarines-to-Narnia-world effect). One could also suppose that the "multiverse" theory actually simply has every possible universe in the same "instance", and that if you travelled far enough, you would start hitting alternate Earths or other sorts of alternative human populations; this, however, might, again, be a bit more "fantasy" than you would like.

On the note of seeding and wormholes, Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria, and all their many fabulous ancient technological possibilities (or other ancient civilisations after the mode of Xenosaga, especially if they leave behind things for us to help find where the people who have gone offworld are now, or to become a galactic species even where they did not), are also, well, possibilities. Much will depend on the sort of story you have to tell. Such details might not even be relevant at all.

[Pabappa]

when i was younger i had the idea that humans had evolved magic sometime around 200000 years ago and then flown through space to a more wholesome planet, leaving us non-magic humans behind. they lived much better lives than us for all of this time and founded many other planets too. we only caught up with them when we developed space travel ourselves, and found that their magic societies were unable to use technology, and thus for the first time in all of history, we had some powers that they could not use, even though they were still happier than us.

it sounds like an actually nice idea when i describe it like this, but the details are all full of logical holes, and i never did come up with a really good explanation for why magic breaks technology and technology in particular.

[Pabappa]

I suppose a related idea somebody could use would involve humans evolving magic at some point in the distant past, flying through space to a more wholesome planet, and then eventually losing their magic abilities, thus becoming stranded there.

Then at some point in our future, one of us contacts the other and wonders how on Earth there could be two planets with humans on them. We would notice that our planet had the lifeforms that clearly led evolutionarily to the first humans, and thus that we must be the original home planet of all humans, and perhaps they would have sad memories of the period in their past when their magic powers began to waste away.

Then, the story could be about humans attempting to rediscover their lost magic powers.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

when i was younger i had the idea that humans had evolved magic sometime around 200000 years ago and then flown through space to a more wholesome planet, leaving us non-magic humans behind. they lived much better lives than us for all of this time and founded many other planets too. we only caught up with them when we developed space travel ourselves, and found that their magic societies were unable to use technology, and thus for the first time in all of history, we had some powers that they could not use, even though they were still happier than us.

it sounds like an actually nice idea when i describe it like this, but the details are all full of logical holes, and i never did come up with a really good explanation for why magic breaks technology and technology in particular.

This does sound rather pretty, but I'm fond of fairy-tale like things. It honestly could be backstory for a world on which I'm now working, in which the origin of the human-like characters (who have magic-like abilities, though how they came by them is ambiguous, and they function somewhere between soft magic and ki attacks based on a vital force called îs) is extremely vague but clearly not the planet on which they currently live, nor even to its star system (there are remnants of "human" activity on surrounding planets, but only one planet and some offworld colonies are now inhabited), but their origins beyond this are deliberately left hazy. They do also have forms of technology, but almost all long-distance communication is wired in some way (large quantities of îs seem to interfere with radiofrequencies, but other than making radio not work, there is no way of detecting it with technology — you cannot record video of it or photograph it, though you could presumably do so with some of its effects, which would look bizarre; the characters who use it can "see" it, and usually describe it as resembling coloured auras).

The word "technology" is vague, but your magic could have simply had a wider-reaching effect, and disabled most metals from transmitting electricity (effectively disabling advancement beyond about the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century, leading the world to at most be as advanced as a gaslamp fantasy). If you ever do anything with the idea you might like to share, I would be interested in reading it. It immediately brought to mind (perhaps ironically) Zeal, the ancient civilisation in Chrono Trigger (even though they do use magitechnology, if memory serves).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

when i was younger i had the idea that humans had evolved magic sometime around 200000 years ago and then flown through space to a more wholesome planet, leaving us non-magic humans behind. they lived much better lives than us for all of this time and founded many other planets too. we only caught up with them when we developed space travel ourselves, and found that their magic societies were unable to use technology, and thus for the first time in all of history, we had some powers that they could not use, even though they were still happier than us.

it sounds like an actually nice idea when i describe it like this, but the details are all full of logical holes, and i never did come up with a really good explanation for why magic breaks technology and technology in particular.

This does sound rather pretty, but I'm fond of fairy-tale like things. It honestly could be backstory for a world on which I'm now working, in which the origin of the human-like characters (who have magic-like abilities, though how they came by them is ambiguous, and they function somewhere between soft magic and ki attacks based on a vital force called îs) is extremely vague but clearly not the planet on which they currently live, nor even to its star system (there are remnants of "human" activity on surrounding planets, but only one planet and some offworld colonies are now inhabited), but their origins beyond this are deliberately left hazy. They do also have forms of technology, but almost all long-distance communication is wired in some way (large quantities of îs seem to interfere with radiofrequencies, but other than making radio not work, there is no way of detecting it with technology — you cannot record video of it or photograph it, though you could presumably do so with some of its effects, which would look bizarre; the characters who use it can "see" it, and usually describe it as resembling coloured auras).

The word "technology" is vague, but your magic could have simply had a wider-reaching effect, and disabled most metals from transmitting electricity (effectively disabling advancement beyond about the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century, leading the world to at most be as advanced as a gaslamp fantasy). If you ever do anything with the idea you might like to share, I would be interested in reading it. It immediately brought to mind (perhaps ironically) Zeal, the ancient civilisation in Chrono Trigger (even though they do use magitechnology, if memory serves).

Edit:

the story could be about humans attempting to rediscover their lost magic powers.

I like this idea.

[Pabappa]

Anyone is welcome to use either of my ideas. I likely never will, unless I make a small video game at some point ... my own writing now is pure fantasy, and even within that fantasy magic is confined to the in-world mythology.

Like I said, though, with the first idea I did run into a lot of logical contradictions that I didnt really address well ... e.g. magic destroys technology, so Earth's first spaceship to the new planet crashes immediately, but somehow space travel starts working again later on and does not require magic.

If anyone wants to run with this idea, theyll have to do it right or else face all the problems like this that I never dealt with.

My second idea I honestly just came up with on the spot as I was typing the post .... anyone's free to use that too, and like I said if I use it it won't be for a serious thought-intensive narrative story, but just as the backdrop for a video game which would be mostly about something else, .... perhaps the player1 character will be one of the few humans who has rediscovered their innate magical powers but has a difficult time getting around since they are constantly breaking appliances, computers, etc.

[alynnidalar]

The word "technology" is vague, but your magic could have simply had a wider-reaching effect, and disabled most metals from transmitting electricity (effectively disabling advancement beyond about the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century, leading the world to at most be as advanced as a gaslamp fantasy).

On the contrary. That would not halt technological advancement--there's no universal law that all societies must develop electronics--but simply lead to different technological advancements (not to mention that a society with accessible magic would develop quite different in the first place!)

If you want a gaslamp fantasy, it's one of those things where you just have to handwave and declare it to be so. There's no realistic reason why people with magic would develop anywhere remotely like how we did on Earth! But conveniently, fantasy readers are used to this sort of handwaving.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

The word "technology" is vague, but your magic could have simply had a wider-reaching effect, and disabled most metals from transmitting electricity (effectively disabling advancement beyond about the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century, leading the world to at most be as advanced as a gaslamp fantasy).

On the contrary. That would not halt technological advancement--there's no universal law that all societies must develop electronics--but simply lead to different technological advancements (not to mention that a society with accessible magic would develop quite different in the first place!)

That was a clumsy way of putting it, now wasn't it? I meant halt it from going in the direction it took in our world. Codified magic itself is a form of technology, and, depending on the point in history, magitech would probably already exist.

If you want a gaslamp fantasy, it's one of those things where you just have to handwave and declare it to be so. There's no realistic reason why people with magic would develop anywhere remotely like how we did on Earth! But conveniently, fantasy readers are used to this sort of handwaving.

You could probably justify it by having magic not so great for certain things (like initiating long-distance transportation) and some characters' magic being elemental, so not good for producing light (your water mage may have a shiny aura, but emitting one constantly would probably be annoying). From there, the people would probably put most research into magic if it demonstrably exists and behaves in an apparently predictable fashion.There would probably be magic lighting, too, so the gaslamp elements would probably eventually become obsolete (especially if magic were once somewhat rare, like literacy, and only recently became common). I shouldn't have said society would stop there, though. Even if electricity doesn't work, you're going to presumably move on to a magitech-based economy and material culture from there unless producing enduring enchantments is particularly costly or difficult.

[dɮ the phoneme]

Ok so I had this half-baked idea for a conworld recently.

In this world, reincarnation exists, and its behavior is governed by an enormous cosmic cycle. This cycle has two phases, each lasting millions, or possibly billions, of years. The first phase is called the waning soul phase. At the beginning of the waning soul phase, there is only one living being, in possession of the world's only soul. This soul is extremely "hot" —it's manifested in intensely potent energy that gives its bearer great power, at the cost of being deeply unstable. Any creature in possession of the one soul is likely to die quickly, unless its body and mind are both remarkably strong. Upon death of its bearer, the soul splits apart into n different souls, each with 1/n times the intensity/energy (I'll get to how n is chosen below). These n souls are reincarnated into n bodies. When these bodies die, each of their souls likewise splits, with each soul's power distributed accordingly. Thus, souls get weaker and weaker as time goes on and the population grows. But the end of the waning soul phase, the world appears to be on the brink of death. It's filled with a massive number of shambling bodies —alive, but barely conscious, only in possession of the faintest souls imaginable.

I'm not sure exactly what the trigger is, but this is when the phase change occurs. At this point, the world enters the waxing soul phase. During the waxing soul phase, something very different happens upon death. When a body dies, its soul is not directly reincarnated. Rather, it becomes a soul-piece: a single fragment of a complete soul. Each soul piece has a specified denomination: it is 1/n of a complete soul, for some n. In order to reincarnate, soul-pieces of appropriate denominations must join together to form a complete soul, upon which they may enter a body. The new soul they create has the sum total of all their energies, and the being it inherits has strength and vitality in proportion to the strength of their soul. By the end of the waxing soul phase, all souls have joined together into one again, and the waning soul phase starts anew.

So, how are the values of n for each soul/soul-piece chosen? Well, there's no exact formula, but the values of n always obey certain criteria. In particular, there are never too many souls for the number of bodies, nor too many bodies for the number of souls. Souls may have to wait around in the afterlife for a bit before they get to reincarnate, but in the long run souls split and merge in ways that always guarantee every body gets a soul and every soul gets a body.

So anyway, that's the idea. It'd be interesting to flesh out more, but that's all I've got so far.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

It's certainly not an uninteresting idea. I would be interested to see where it might go.

[Qwynegold]

It's a really interesting idea. But the problem is that if each soul splits into two, you'd need an exponential population growth. If a soul can split into more than two, you'd need more than exponential growth.

I'm thinking the one soul with massive energy would be a god, while all the tiny weak souls at the end would be bacteria...?

[KathTheDragon]

If a soul can split into more than two, you'd need more than exponential growth.

It's still only exponential.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

It's a really interesting idea. But the problem is that if each soul splits into two, you'd need an exponential population growth. If a soul can split into more than two, you'd need more than exponential growth.

I'm thinking the one soul with massive energy would be a god, while all the tiny weak souls at the end would be bacteria...?

The first organism could well be something approaching what humans might call a "god", though I'm not overly fond of the term (I feel it has rather much baggage), but, if we consider each new organism to have a soul, and some souls to be bigger than others (perhaps each individual cell has one?), I think we would have the beginnings of something. In my own world, the physical size to which an organism can grow is directly connected with the amount of life force the soul of the organism can produce, so this would be a bit of an inverse example — larger organisms can gather more souls in their cells, possibly with neural tissue involving more souls than plant or other animal tissues? From, this, you arrive at sentience, after the dissolution of the original lifeform, from the accretion of smaller "souls" within larger organisms.

[Qwynegold]

It's still only exponential.

Oh, I thought it's exponential only if it's multiplied two exactly.

Ryuuji: That's an interesting idea too.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Ryuuji: That's an interesting idea too.

Thank you.

[Richard W]

I came across the interesting concept of 'bijective decimals' today. They're a positional number notation that doesn't use zero; instead, the digits have the values one to ten. Thus, if we use 'A' for the digit 'ten', and write the most significant digit on the left, twenty would be written '1A' and 'one hundred would be 9A, 'one hundred and one' would be 'A1', one hundred and ten would be 'AA', and one hundred and eleven would be '111'. Has anyone here tried using such a system for a conlang or conscript?

[Qwynegold]

Huh, that's interesting. I've only ever used the usual positional system, and mostly just the decimal one. Oh, except for a "one, two, three, many" system once.

[WeepingElf]

Ok so I had this half-baked idea for a conworld recently.

[story about splitting and re-uniting souls]

This is great! I once had a similar idea. The idea was that human souls were made of some sort of "soul substance" of which there is a constant, limited amount available, such that, as the human population grows, there is less and less of it available per capita, such that the souls of the people become more and more dilute and thus weaker and weaker.

[Raphael]

Small question: in a conworld setting, would a fictional academic subject that would combine the study of history, the study of geography, and an educated, well-informed layperson's understanding of the major natural sciences and technologies make sense?

Edit: perhaps to prepare people for the study of different sentient species and their cultures and technologies?

[Ares Land]

For secondary education, it makes a lot of sense. For higher education, I'm not sure everything can fit in one course. That depends on who the target audience is, I suppose.