New collaborative conworld?

[Glass Half Baked]

I have been holding my tongue because I don't want pointless drama, but in this case it might not be pointless:

I have also found foxcatdog difficult to work with in group projects.

I don't think he has any malice or ill-intent. But he struggles to include the thinking of other people in his communication or decision making process.

[Man in Space]

Honestly, I feel that Akana went near-dead long before foxcatdog put the last nail in the coffin. At the end it seems to have been merely a setting to do reconstruction relays on.

I disagree. I’d been doing work on “Antarctica” on and off, and it was in the course of that work that I found the comment that sparked the whole thing. It wasn’t near-dead, just quiet. Multiple other people—Corumayas, Frislander, Karch, Kuchigakatai/Ser/Necrar, kodé, dhok, even cedh (implicitly or otherwise), and now Glass Half Baked—have raised the issue of his conduct, some of whom have ascribed their abandonment of the project to him directly.

he struggles to include the thinking of other people in his communication or decision making process.

Understatement. He flat-out ignores it if he doesn’t like it (sometimes he’ll even refuse to acknowledge it if you bring it up…look through his posts in the subforum and see how he has claimed ignorance multiple times in the face of prior posts) and tries to shove his plans down your throat.

[Glass Half Baked]

We are all "Train People" here, so I try to be forgiving of communication issues. But in this case I think a large effort is needed on FCD's part to be able to better function in these kinds of projects.

[/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/]

okay, well let's pack aside all this foxcatdog drama now and actually work on the collaborative conworld.

I've a cool idea regarding planetary setting that I'd like to see if anybody likes:

basically, a planet that's "tidally locked" but not fully...? like I'm talking a planet that takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years to complete one daylight cycle. to avoid having to make life on a habitable band, we could just say we threw in a lot of albedo and took away a lot of greenhouse gas to support life on the sun-up side¹. this could lead to lots of things like the eventual extinction of humanity as it, well, evolves near the end of a daylight cycle and only has enough time to make it to said point in history before no more land becomes available and they all drown or freeze to death in the dark side², along with lots of cultural lore about the "moving wall of shadow and doom" or whatever.

now, this is by no means me trying to force a final idea on yall. this is just me and my overactive brain. tell me what you think!

¹ I've no idea if this is scientifically feasible whatsoever, but hey, we're conworlding here.
² again, we're conworlding here. there is no need to be fully scientific.

[bradrn]

basically, a planet that's "tidally locked" but not fully...? like I'm talking a planet that takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years to complete one daylight cycle.

Is this plausible? I think such a planet would become tidally locked before completing one daylight cycle.

That said, I’m aware of a similar possibility: a planet with an unstable orbital axis (as sometimes theorised for Mars). Over millions of years this can lead to the habitable area shifting.

[/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/]

basically, a planet that's "tidally locked" but not fully...? like I'm talking a planet that takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years to complete one daylight cycle.

Is this plausible? I think such a planet would become tidally locked before completing one daylight cycle.

well, again:

¹ I've no idea if this is scientifically feasible whatsoever, but hey, we're conworlding here.
² again, we're conworlding here. there is no need to be fully scientific.

edit: I retroactively realize that these footnotes seem rather harsh. my apologies, I only meant to further the point of being capable of disregarding science for the sake of creativity.

[bradrn]

edit: I retroactively realize that these footnotes seem rather harsh. my apologies, I only meant to further the point of being capable of disregarding science for the sake of creativity.

I understand your thoughts there, yes. On the other hand, I feel that if you’re discussing tidal locking, I feel you’ve already gone beyond entirely ‘disregarding science’…

[Tsimaah]

basically, a planet that's "tidally locked" but not fully...? like I'm talking a planet that takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years to complete one daylight cycle. to avoid having to make life on a habitable band, we could just say we threw in a lot of albedo and took away a lot of greenhouse gas to support life on the sun-up side¹. this could lead to lots of things like the eventual extinction of humanity as it, well, evolves near the end of a daylight cycle and only has enough time to make it to said point in history before no more land becomes available and they all drown or freeze to death in the dark side², along with lots of cultural lore about the "moving wall of shadow and doom" or whatever.

now, this is by no means me trying to force a final idea on yall. this is just me and my overactive brain. tell me what you think!

¹ I've no idea if this is scientifically feasible whatsoever, but hey, we're conworlding here.

I like this idea. And I don't think it is too scientifically infeasible, I am aware that some geologic and orbital processes exist which can
cause things like poles moving around (true polar wander), I think the right arrangement of planets or moons in a solar system could provide enough nudging to prevent a planet from becoming truly tidally locked. But why would humanity go extinct in this situation? Is the slow rotation of the dark side pushing everyone into the ocean? In that situation maybe people are fighting to migrate over to the handful of islands that will now be on the light side as the amount of arable land in sunlight dwindles each decade.

[bradrn]

true polar wander

This is what I was referring to earlier when I mentioned Mars… just forgot the proper terminology for it.

[Glass Half Baked]

The question is: how long does it take for a planet to become tidally locked, and thus how much time do you have to play worldbuilding in?

The obvious answer is: "it depends." All planets in the solar system are becoming very slowly tidally locked with the sun, but most of them won't complete the process during the sun's lifetime. Here are the variables to play with:

1. The initial spin in the early days of formation. This depends on a lot of factors, so you can play around with this.
2. The tidal forces at work. Again, you can adjust this however you want by changing the distance and mass/volume of the relevant objects.
3. The timeframe. Do we want billions of years of evolution during this process, or are we just trying to make a fun civilization over the course of a few thousand years?
4. The X factor. Is there a large moon? Recent impacts or extra-stellar intruders? Lots of things can happen.

If we want, any part of the "becoming tidally locked" process can happen, and can happen for millions or possibly billions of years. It's all just a matter of identifying the result you want, and working the math back from there.

[/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/]

Is the slow rotation of the dark side pushing everyone into the ocean? In that situation maybe people are fighting to migrate over to the handful of islands that will now be on the light side as the amount of arable land in sunlight dwindles each decade.

yes, this is essentially what I had in mind.

The question is: how long does it take for a planet to become tidally locked, and thus how much time do you have to play worldbuilding in?

The obvious answer is: "it depends." All planets in the solar system are becoming very slowly tidally locked with the sun, but most of them won't complete the process during the sun's lifetime. Here are the variables to play with:

1. The initial spin in the early days of formation. This depends on a lot of factors, so you can play around with this.
2. The tidal forces at work. Again, you can adjust this however you want by changing the distance and mass/volume of the relevant objects.
3. The timeframe. Do we want billions of years of evolution during this process, or are we just trying to make a fun civilization over the course of a few thousand years?
4. The X factor. Is there a large moon? Recent impacts or extra-stellar intruders? Lots of things can happen.

If we want, any part of the "becoming tidally locked" process can happen, and can happen for millions or possibly billions of years. It's all just a matter of identifying the result you want, and working the math back from there.

again I state: I see no true need to stick faithfully to science. to answer your points;

1. and 2. I feel that metering out the exact reasonings for why things are as they happen to be is nulling to the creativity of worldbuilding, and limiting to future possibilities besides, so I would prefer to avoid such things. name a well-renowned fantasy conworld that doesn't have some universally accepted law of nature that would seem bizarre when thought of literally? it's part of the fun!
3. we probably don't need to run through billions of years of evolution, so a few thousand years should suffice.
4. I imagine a moon is complementary, but I won't fight for it if it is proven otherwise.

[bradrn]

I feel that metering out the exact reasonings for why things are as they happen to be is nulling to the creativity of worldbuilding

Er, what? Surely working out coherent reasons is absolutely fundamental to good worldbuilding?

(Note that this applies across genres. A coherent fantasy world doesn’t necessarily need to adhere to the rules of our own universe, of course, but within whatever rules it has, it still needs to be self-consistent.)

[Glass Half Baked]

It's less a collaborative conworld, and more a satire about collaborative conworlds.