I am super bored
Nov. 9th, 2018 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI think I'm bored of all the kinds of stories that just kind of happen while you watch/read/listen.
And also bored of the only two computer games I have (or maybe three if the old computer still works).
Logically I should start writing, but that has been true for over five years now, or possibly longer depending how you count.
What I am doing instead is reading Pathfinder rules, in books and on the web, and getting Ideas, which is clearly the exciting part of writing.
So I know what my character would pack (ish) and how they would arrive
but once they get there I don't know which set of characters they should meet.
Like, I could go chronologically by the time I was in that fandom, or I could figure out who is logical for that geography, in a translated into fantasy setting way, but if I try both...
Well they need a ship of some sort, so, do they meet the Waverider or the Enterprise?
... or, now I'm looking at the shelves, the Liberator or Moya?
... or possibly SeaQuest... I mean you could sink much further before being rescued if it's the seaquest...
I haven't watched that for ages though. I just looked it up on wiki and it says the first season was set in 2018. ... that was a bit optimistic about tech timelines then...
It did a time jump to 2032. Don't think I've got that season, should get it. It's not every show that looks at what it has done so far and just kind of shrugs and sends the whole submarine into a different generation...
Okay, so, ships, not the sort a writer usually thinks of. I could obviously keep going on possibilities, but most of them are not part of the regular cast in my head. Waverider, Enterprise, or Liberator I think on sometimes. And obviously there's quite a wide range of Enterprise.
But they tell rather different stories.
I love Legends but if you leave time travel out of it what are they actually going to do?
Star Trek is always easy to translate. Seek out new life and new civilisations. There were centuries of having a lot of that just kind of around the place, wherever people could get a ship back from. And in a fantasy world you get all the fun of figuring out how to talk to elves and orcs and so forth, though most rpgs figure someone has done the work of translating and also that there are spells for that at really low level. Like, not quite universal translator time, but nearly.
Babylon 5 in a fantasy 'verse doesn't get much less epic. I mean, the ships would travel in two dimensions, but the dark powers hanging over them all offering temptations are pretty traditional.
What sailing ships are even doing in Pathfinder type 'verses isn't so simples, because there's teleportation magic, and shortcuts through other planes, and you kind of need to figure out why people need to bring a whole floating house along. If adventurers and mages are too rare to base an economy on then fair enough. But there could be quirky bits too. Like, there's a druid spell or power that lets people walk between trees of the same species. Which would work grand in the same climate zone, you'd just zoom along, through matching ecology. But if you wanted to go somewhere particular, somewhere that didn't match, you would need to send a tree in advance. And probably a really good gardener. Maybe a magic one who could make sure the tree thrived.
You could make groves of trees of different species, each connected to a long line of trees that led in a particular direction.
I mean, obviously trees are pretty plentiful in some locations, but if you wanted to use the trees for getting around in a methodical way, you'd need to make lines of them.
Except druids are all about nature? Is going out of your way to plant a tree somewhere it otherwise wouldn't be actually in accordance with a reverence for nature? Because if it isn't you'd go a long way to plant a tree to let your mates travel in a single step, and then lose your powers once you done it.
So.
I want to read fantasy books that get into the worldbuilding implications of this stuff.
I mean there's a spell that lets you make a continuous supply of fresh water come out of a jug forever, and if I did some maths I guess I could figure out how many people it could support or like how much of the uk water supply would come out of one jug. Probably not much, it's like a fire hose or something but it's not a whole river. Probably. Ish. But it is clean, pure, water, wherever you want it. Which is ridiculously world changing. And a really low level spell.
Also the trade goods section says that salt is worth its weight in silver. But that magic item can also make salt water? And there's another spell for drying out the water? And for all I know there might be another spell that just straight up makes salt, I don't know yet, there are a lot of spells. So how does it retain its trade value if you can just magic it up?
Also, I get annoyed at this whole 'evil races' bit. So they're living in the wastelands fighting for scraps and, what, therefore evil? If they're stuck in the kind of land that's trying to kill them then historically you get some very tightly knit social groups that outsiders badmouth, pretend don't own the place, move out, and exploit the land for Stuff while complaining how crap it is. I am not comfortable with putting 'evil' in this narrative. Also it's creepy that orcs reproduce so fast and that is somehow part of why they're evil. Like, I feel I have heard this story before, about having too many babies to care about them all, and I feel it is a bad story.
Also there's no attempt at an alternate morality based around alternate reproductive systems. Like, goa'uld have so many offspring at once, caring about one and spending all your time with them like humans do would seem utterly bizarre. It would neglect thousands just to care about the handful you could spend more than a minute with in a given day. So the story calls them evil and uncaring, but wouldn't they just have an alternate morality? I mean they've got a complex civilisation, what is that even for? And demonstrably it is for improving the conditions of the new symbiotes so more survive to adulthood and successful implantation, which is tricky at several early phases. So their version of good is the greatest good for the greatest number, is improving the whole world so more individuals make it. And you read teh definitions of good alignment and that would certainly qualify, except, without the individual emotional attachment, they are the bad guys.
Obviously also because slavery is a big problem. But that's what I'm saying, Stargate didn't present an alternate system that would actually work, they were just, like, those guys are evil, let's just destroy them.
Ugh.
Bring more Star Trek attitude to everything, expand the Federation, become united across boundaries of varying needs. Much more interesting.
... so, looping back to question I started with, guess I'm going to start with the Enterprise.
... and being me, it's probably NX-01.
... now, which of the classes with an animal companion should Archer be...
And also bored of the only two computer games I have (or maybe three if the old computer still works).
Logically I should start writing, but that has been true for over five years now, or possibly longer depending how you count.
What I am doing instead is reading Pathfinder rules, in books and on the web, and getting Ideas, which is clearly the exciting part of writing.
So I know what my character would pack (ish) and how they would arrive
but once they get there I don't know which set of characters they should meet.
Like, I could go chronologically by the time I was in that fandom, or I could figure out who is logical for that geography, in a translated into fantasy setting way, but if I try both...
Well they need a ship of some sort, so, do they meet the Waverider or the Enterprise?
... or, now I'm looking at the shelves, the Liberator or Moya?
... or possibly SeaQuest... I mean you could sink much further before being rescued if it's the seaquest...
I haven't watched that for ages though. I just looked it up on wiki and it says the first season was set in 2018. ... that was a bit optimistic about tech timelines then...
It did a time jump to 2032. Don't think I've got that season, should get it. It's not every show that looks at what it has done so far and just kind of shrugs and sends the whole submarine into a different generation...
Okay, so, ships, not the sort a writer usually thinks of. I could obviously keep going on possibilities, but most of them are not part of the regular cast in my head. Waverider, Enterprise, or Liberator I think on sometimes. And obviously there's quite a wide range of Enterprise.
But they tell rather different stories.
I love Legends but if you leave time travel out of it what are they actually going to do?
Star Trek is always easy to translate. Seek out new life and new civilisations. There were centuries of having a lot of that just kind of around the place, wherever people could get a ship back from. And in a fantasy world you get all the fun of figuring out how to talk to elves and orcs and so forth, though most rpgs figure someone has done the work of translating and also that there are spells for that at really low level. Like, not quite universal translator time, but nearly.
Babylon 5 in a fantasy 'verse doesn't get much less epic. I mean, the ships would travel in two dimensions, but the dark powers hanging over them all offering temptations are pretty traditional.
What sailing ships are even doing in Pathfinder type 'verses isn't so simples, because there's teleportation magic, and shortcuts through other planes, and you kind of need to figure out why people need to bring a whole floating house along. If adventurers and mages are too rare to base an economy on then fair enough. But there could be quirky bits too. Like, there's a druid spell or power that lets people walk between trees of the same species. Which would work grand in the same climate zone, you'd just zoom along, through matching ecology. But if you wanted to go somewhere particular, somewhere that didn't match, you would need to send a tree in advance. And probably a really good gardener. Maybe a magic one who could make sure the tree thrived.
You could make groves of trees of different species, each connected to a long line of trees that led in a particular direction.
I mean, obviously trees are pretty plentiful in some locations, but if you wanted to use the trees for getting around in a methodical way, you'd need to make lines of them.
Except druids are all about nature? Is going out of your way to plant a tree somewhere it otherwise wouldn't be actually in accordance with a reverence for nature? Because if it isn't you'd go a long way to plant a tree to let your mates travel in a single step, and then lose your powers once you done it.
So.
I want to read fantasy books that get into the worldbuilding implications of this stuff.
I mean there's a spell that lets you make a continuous supply of fresh water come out of a jug forever, and if I did some maths I guess I could figure out how many people it could support or like how much of the uk water supply would come out of one jug. Probably not much, it's like a fire hose or something but it's not a whole river. Probably. Ish. But it is clean, pure, water, wherever you want it. Which is ridiculously world changing. And a really low level spell.
Also the trade goods section says that salt is worth its weight in silver. But that magic item can also make salt water? And there's another spell for drying out the water? And for all I know there might be another spell that just straight up makes salt, I don't know yet, there are a lot of spells. So how does it retain its trade value if you can just magic it up?
Also, I get annoyed at this whole 'evil races' bit. So they're living in the wastelands fighting for scraps and, what, therefore evil? If they're stuck in the kind of land that's trying to kill them then historically you get some very tightly knit social groups that outsiders badmouth, pretend don't own the place, move out, and exploit the land for Stuff while complaining how crap it is. I am not comfortable with putting 'evil' in this narrative. Also it's creepy that orcs reproduce so fast and that is somehow part of why they're evil. Like, I feel I have heard this story before, about having too many babies to care about them all, and I feel it is a bad story.
Also there's no attempt at an alternate morality based around alternate reproductive systems. Like, goa'uld have so many offspring at once, caring about one and spending all your time with them like humans do would seem utterly bizarre. It would neglect thousands just to care about the handful you could spend more than a minute with in a given day. So the story calls them evil and uncaring, but wouldn't they just have an alternate morality? I mean they've got a complex civilisation, what is that even for? And demonstrably it is for improving the conditions of the new symbiotes so more survive to adulthood and successful implantation, which is tricky at several early phases. So their version of good is the greatest good for the greatest number, is improving the whole world so more individuals make it. And you read teh definitions of good alignment and that would certainly qualify, except, without the individual emotional attachment, they are the bad guys.
Obviously also because slavery is a big problem. But that's what I'm saying, Stargate didn't present an alternate system that would actually work, they were just, like, those guys are evil, let's just destroy them.
Ugh.
Bring more Star Trek attitude to everything, expand the Federation, become united across boundaries of varying needs. Much more interesting.
... so, looping back to question I started with, guess I'm going to start with the Enterprise.
... and being me, it's probably NX-01.
... now, which of the classes with an animal companion should Archer be...