Harbinger Ace
Destroyer of Worlds
- Location
- Aloha, Oregon, USA
THREAD BEING REWORKED. PLEASE STAND BY.
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From The Land, To The Air, To The Stars - An Interplanetary Endeavor
- Thread starter Harbinger Ace
- Start date
- Original
PewPewBangBang
Ork-wielding gun
- Location
- Earth
I think you mean vomited
Don't have much experience with nation stuff so I'll just lurk a bit
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No.
I apologize for the spaghetti-posting but there's a multitude of shit to address. And I'm going to assume that you posted this in the hopes of receiving feedback.
Are you seriously implying -well not implying, stating- that the only reason that the slaves didn't revolt beforehand was because they weren't being physically shackled? Historically states that rely on slavery for the bulk of their labor are very cognizant of their precarious position. People aren't stupid and even in ancient times they can do basic math. Enough to figure out that there are more slaves than there are members of the ruling class. So, y'know, they figure out ways around it.
There are cultural norms indoctrinated into slaves, there are laws that restrict what they can and can't do, slave rebellions are going to be a persistent problem for any state that relies so heavily on a subjugated people in such a way so you're going to have a military that, if nothing else, is adept at seal-clubbing servile insurrections. Your major antagonists are a fucking magocracy, that they've been doing this for however many hundreds of years and haven't figured out a magical methodology be it a system of astral early warning beacons for rebellions or branding scars that mark any slave from miles away or tattooed collars that compel them to obey anyone who holds the proper credentials is pretty silly.
Almost as silly as "the slaving empire that has developed complex banking and has long-distance colonial aims has never had to deal with an actual uprising" but not quite.
A successful uprising itself isn't exactly straining the imagination though. This is a small outpost, a personal, private venture. A few dozen nobles and some already disgruntled slaves who see an opportunity and take it, isn't exactly out there.
This is though.
They're ill-trained, unarmored, slaves armed with workman's tools going up against an entire company of magically capable/magically supported soldiers with good armaments and good armor who are used to putting down insurrections. Barring some out of context shit or some absolutely catastrophic fuckup on behalf of the elves the humans are going to inflict minor casualties at best and then get hacked to pieces. Or do well and still get hacked to pieces. Or a good portion of the slaves will break and surrender or break and flee because they decided that they don't want to get hacked to pieces.
Because if you're a guy who has a heavy mallet and nothing but armor you salvaged from the personal guard of the nobles who used to own you, and you're going up against a dude who can fire spikes of ice into stone with a thought, who has a sword and has been trained to use it, and can walk through almost every hit you sling at him, well what the fuck are you going to do?
Just going "they underestimated them" is weak writing and dances around a problem that, as structured, can't really be provided the solution you want.
No.
It's a settlement of four thousand people. Even if you up the numbers it's isolated. Insignificant enough that the elves just went "ahhh fuck it" and prioritized other problems. Crossbows maybe, fine, the elven army uses spells to propel their arrows at ludicrous speeds and humans try to find a way to mimic that and some craftsmen among them manage a viable alternative.
But they're not pulling gunpowder and the infrastructure and skillset necessary for crafting cannon out of their asses. Not when they're alone, isolated, and lacking the circumstances that would encourage or reward firearms production (magically made armor yo, crude and clumsy bullets aren't going to do shit). That's not how technological development works. This is just "I want to give not!America guns".
The idea that there are no advances being made are pretty lel too. If magic is as widespread among the elves as you imply then yeah there would be a lot of advances in weaponry. It'd just all be magic oriented and most likely oriented towards taking down peer opponents since this big, rich, empire is going to and does have enemies. And if it's not advancing it's because it does the job well enough that nobody cares. And at any level it's going to do the job of "kill unarmored, non-magical human" pretty well.
This is stupid and gratuitous and seems to be based off of a fairly shallow understanding of how such a society would develop. Sure you'd have people be lazy and fuck, but you'd have more people be cognizant of the fact that survival means getting the grain planted and getting the walls made. And the massive gender discrepancy is going to almost certainly result in a massive curtailing of female rights.
Why do the not!French care? It's some isolated region that nobody gives a shit about to task soldiers to. Sure they might ship it some arms and material, grain and supplies, make them an actual thorn in the side, but that's probably just to piss off their actual enemies. The humans are, in the end, not peer opponents. Not well developed. And have little money or industry simply by virtue of lacking all the means that the elves have to acquire their bullshit levels of wealth and industry.
They're a useful proxy basically. This isn't France riding to the rescue in the Revolutionary War, this is more like the US funneling money to UNITA. So why would they outlaw slavery to appease some little spit of land of no particular political importance? Is it because they read the script and know that these guys are preordained to be important?
Also lol, nice, "oppressive faith". I mean what does it do? What do they believe? Besides in being oppressive.
Why would they need melee? You already gave them guns that can punch through elven plate. Even in your own established context this exchange doesn't really make sense.
Literally just not!America.
Look, you can't go from largely unskilled labor scratch to mass producing fine-machined munitions. The America analogy doesn't even work: America was a participant in global trade with resources and land to spare (and one of their major partners was England no less), they had oceans insulating them from Asia and Europe, and then they had WWI come along and cut off a lot of the old world order at the knee. That's a gross oversimplification yeah but there's more to it than just leaving a freedom-theme nation alone for awhile and hoping it'll spontaneously generate money.
The polio shit is just pure masturbation.
Like, I can get some of this. Elves are long lived and incredibly powerful, they have to think on the scale they do to win. But you're basically insisting that, like, the issues of 1675 would still be as prominent in the thoughts of a modern day government. That the considerations of 1675 would still be germane to tactics and strategy of the modern day.
You also have not!America as the unambiguous aggressors waging a moral crusade against a foreign power and damn the consequences.
...So props to accuracy to life I guess dohoho.
(Seriously, slavery is fucked up but like...it's complex and slavery isn't slavery isn't slavery, not in all times and not in all places and often times it proves more trouble than its worth and the state eventually abolishes it/phases it out on its own. Usually concurrent with their own development, unless you're saying that these elven nations have been in literal stasis for millennia. So just going "yeah but they're slavers therefore evil though" is right up there with "evilChinese North Koreans" in heavy handed attempts to justify the conflict.)
>ignored another nation for nearly four hundred years
>missed them having an entire industrial revolution
>Magocratic empire full of mages and shit can't even spare a scry
Man what?
No way to defend themselves what?
Normand is Orson Scott Card levels of naming, well done. The fact that a major component of the evil empire just rolls over the moment a prominent head of state is axed is hilarious (because lines of succession don't exist or anything).
Look.
You're trying to create this enduring antagonist to mankind but you're falling into the Schrodinger's villain trap super hard. They're a powerful slaving empire of nigh immortal mages therefore they pose an existential threat capable of crushing the nascent not!America nation in their sleep. But they're also lazy and weak and arrogant and really rather thick so in practice they're actually no threat at all. But the narrative treats them as being both simultaneously.
As worldbuilding it's not particularly imaginative and you're lavishing attention on little details that don't really matter. As a thematic underpinning it's incoherent and rewards the humans mostly for just existing.
I apologize for the spaghetti-posting but there's a multitude of shit to address. And I'm going to assume that you posted this in the hopes of receiving feedback.
Are you seriously implying -well not implying, stating- that the only reason that the slaves didn't revolt beforehand was because they weren't being physically shackled? Historically states that rely on slavery for the bulk of their labor are very cognizant of their precarious position. People aren't stupid and even in ancient times they can do basic math. Enough to figure out that there are more slaves than there are members of the ruling class. So, y'know, they figure out ways around it.
There are cultural norms indoctrinated into slaves, there are laws that restrict what they can and can't do, slave rebellions are going to be a persistent problem for any state that relies so heavily on a subjugated people in such a way so you're going to have a military that, if nothing else, is adept at seal-clubbing servile insurrections. Your major antagonists are a fucking magocracy, that they've been doing this for however many hundreds of years and haven't figured out a magical methodology be it a system of astral early warning beacons for rebellions or branding scars that mark any slave from miles away or tattooed collars that compel them to obey anyone who holds the proper credentials is pretty silly.
Almost as silly as "the slaving empire that has developed complex banking and has long-distance colonial aims has never had to deal with an actual uprising" but not quite.
A successful uprising itself isn't exactly straining the imagination though. This is a small outpost, a personal, private venture. A few dozen nobles and some already disgruntled slaves who see an opportunity and take it, isn't exactly out there.
This is though.
They're ill-trained, unarmored, slaves armed with workman's tools going up against an entire company of magically capable/magically supported soldiers with good armaments and good armor who are used to putting down insurrections. Barring some out of context shit or some absolutely catastrophic fuckup on behalf of the elves the humans are going to inflict minor casualties at best and then get hacked to pieces. Or do well and still get hacked to pieces. Or a good portion of the slaves will break and surrender or break and flee because they decided that they don't want to get hacked to pieces.
Because if you're a guy who has a heavy mallet and nothing but armor you salvaged from the personal guard of the nobles who used to own you, and you're going up against a dude who can fire spikes of ice into stone with a thought, who has a sword and has been trained to use it, and can walk through almost every hit you sling at him, well what the fuck are you going to do?
Just going "they underestimated them" is weak writing and dances around a problem that, as structured, can't really be provided the solution you want.
No.
It's a settlement of four thousand people. Even if you up the numbers it's isolated. Insignificant enough that the elves just went "ahhh fuck it" and prioritized other problems. Crossbows maybe, fine, the elven army uses spells to propel their arrows at ludicrous speeds and humans try to find a way to mimic that and some craftsmen among them manage a viable alternative.
But they're not pulling gunpowder and the infrastructure and skillset necessary for crafting cannon out of their asses. Not when they're alone, isolated, and lacking the circumstances that would encourage or reward firearms production (magically made armor yo, crude and clumsy bullets aren't going to do shit). That's not how technological development works. This is just "I want to give not!America guns".
The idea that there are no advances being made are pretty lel too. If magic is as widespread among the elves as you imply then yeah there would be a lot of advances in weaponry. It'd just all be magic oriented and most likely oriented towards taking down peer opponents since this big, rich, empire is going to and does have enemies. And if it's not advancing it's because it does the job well enough that nobody cares. And at any level it's going to do the job of "kill unarmored, non-magical human" pretty well.
This is stupid and gratuitous and seems to be based off of a fairly shallow understanding of how such a society would develop. Sure you'd have people be lazy and fuck, but you'd have more people be cognizant of the fact that survival means getting the grain planted and getting the walls made. And the massive gender discrepancy is going to almost certainly result in a massive curtailing of female rights.
Why do the not!French care? It's some isolated region that nobody gives a shit about to task soldiers to. Sure they might ship it some arms and material, grain and supplies, make them an actual thorn in the side, but that's probably just to piss off their actual enemies. The humans are, in the end, not peer opponents. Not well developed. And have little money or industry simply by virtue of lacking all the means that the elves have to acquire their bullshit levels of wealth and industry.
They're a useful proxy basically. This isn't France riding to the rescue in the Revolutionary War, this is more like the US funneling money to UNITA. So why would they outlaw slavery to appease some little spit of land of no particular political importance? Is it because they read the script and know that these guys are preordained to be important?
Also lol, nice, "oppressive faith". I mean what does it do? What do they believe? Besides in being oppressive.
Why would they need melee? You already gave them guns that can punch through elven plate. Even in your own established context this exchange doesn't really make sense.
Literally just not!America.
Look, you can't go from largely unskilled labor scratch to mass producing fine-machined munitions. The America analogy doesn't even work: America was a participant in global trade with resources and land to spare (and one of their major partners was England no less), they had oceans insulating them from Asia and Europe, and then they had WWI come along and cut off a lot of the old world order at the knee. That's a gross oversimplification yeah but there's more to it than just leaving a freedom-theme nation alone for awhile and hoping it'll spontaneously generate money.
The polio shit is just pure masturbation.
Like, I can get some of this. Elves are long lived and incredibly powerful, they have to think on the scale they do to win. But you're basically insisting that, like, the issues of 1675 would still be as prominent in the thoughts of a modern day government. That the considerations of 1675 would still be germane to tactics and strategy of the modern day.
You also have not!America as the unambiguous aggressors waging a moral crusade against a foreign power and damn the consequences.
...So props to accuracy to life I guess dohoho.
(Seriously, slavery is fucked up but like...it's complex and slavery isn't slavery isn't slavery, not in all times and not in all places and often times it proves more trouble than its worth and the state eventually abolishes it/phases it out on its own. Usually concurrent with their own development, unless you're saying that these elven nations have been in literal stasis for millennia. So just going "yeah but they're slavers therefore evil though" is right up there with "evil
>ignored another nation for nearly four hundred years
>missed them having an entire industrial revolution
>Magocratic empire full of mages and shit can't even spare a scry
Man what?
No way to defend themselves what?
Normand is Orson Scott Card levels of naming, well done. The fact that a major component of the evil empire just rolls over the moment a prominent head of state is axed is hilarious (because lines of succession don't exist or anything).
Look.
You're trying to create this enduring antagonist to mankind but you're falling into the Schrodinger's villain trap super hard. They're a powerful slaving empire of nigh immortal mages therefore they pose an existential threat capable of crushing the nascent not!America nation in their sleep. But they're also lazy and weak and arrogant and really rather thick so in practice they're actually no threat at all. But the narrative treats them as being both simultaneously.
As worldbuilding it's not particularly imaginative and you're lavishing attention on little details that don't really matter. As a thematic underpinning it's incoherent and rewards the humans mostly for just existing.
- Location
- NYC
Basically this.
There's a more basic problem at work here, which is that you've chosen an unfortunately direct and literal way to translate real world people/events/places/nations into your fantasy world. That type of approach rarely works: it creates a setting instantly recognizable as "fantasy Earth/America/etc.", but that are fundamentally incoherent on their own, because not everything has a 1:1 relationship and a lot of those specific components of our history (technology disparity between nations, economic disparity caused by changing trade landscapes, religious disputes, grudges between individuals) won't really make sense. You can emulate a specific period easily enough, replacing culture groups with different species and substituting various bits of technology with magic, but attempting to convey a history that way is an endeavor that will quickly collapse into itself, because then you end up with things like racial differences being crazy important one year, not at all important for the next twenty, and then crazy important again, and also apparently species can intermarry but never have before.
Edit:
To expand, you're writing in a genre I'll call fantasy allegory, which is at it's best when you can make commentary on the real world through metaphor–and also just be a really good narrative. Successes include Dune and Ender's game.
The problem is, however, that a good metaphor for one nation/idea/people/piece of technology during one period of time is probably a shit-poor metaphor for that same thing in another period of time. The Fremen work as a metaphor for the Bedouins, rising up to claim their independence. The problem is that they only work as a metaphor for the Bedouins: there are too many specific details that just don't scale, thirty years earlier or thirty years later. The larger the scope of your story, both in terms of timeline and size, the harder it is to pin down coherent metaphors that don't seem to make the universe feel contrived.
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Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
Yeah. Slavery developed according to particular social, economical and political factors IRL, and there are multiple types of "Slavery." Colonial USA slavery was different from how Republican or Imperial Roman slavery, which was in itself different from the slavery practised by this or that Egyptian dynasty. This is a problem by the elves being portrayed as sort of....I mean, why would even need humans to being with? You don't actually spend much time describing the Emerian society and why and how it needs slaves. It kinda becomes egregious when you read between the lines and sort of see that the elves just kinda apparently steamrolled over a lot of shit on their own..
It's like- Nothing in the beginning of this is either realistic or interesting. Why and how Emeria came to be the slave capitol? Is it at the crossing of several rivers or in a place with a geography that makes it easy for airship to fly in? How did these elves reach this place? How did they develop their magic and such? I mean of course you could have this written down in your notes but like- People are gonna wonder about magic and whatnot and how it works and how it influences the history of the setting.
Harbinger Ace
Destroyer of Worlds
- Location
- Aloha, Oregon, USA
That was a typo, yes. I made this late at night.
Harbinger Ace
Destroyer of Worlds
- Location
- Aloha, Oregon, USA
You didn't look at the bottom. There were far more elves to control them.
Perhaps I need to be a bit more clear. The magical power elves hold can twist an individual's mind to a point of borderline insanity, shattering them within. This does not kill an individual, but severely weakens their overall ability to think or move, at least temporarily.
Obviously, the story is a WIP. However, this part of the story lies in the fact that Emeria is stretched too thin to guarantee national security and invade the new land. I'll add that into the OP a bit later.
40,000, whoops. Late-night typing strikes again.
Money is a real concern to Emeria, as with all major nations. Since they see their former slaves as a waste of time to try and recapture, they focus on other business endeavors, which turn out to be far more beneficial. As well, they expect humans to die off within a certain period of time due to lack of actual experience. Again, late-night typing; I forgot to include these details. My OP will be edited soon.
No, elves cannot accelerate their arrows to ludicrous speeds. Physical manipulation of existing matter is not part of the magical system, here. Using magic also exhausts them quickly, so they tend to prefer other means to ranged combat. How the whole system exactly works is not finalized, which is why I did not include it.
The overall mentality of the to-be-UF is based off of Scandinavia, not the United States.
Time is required to develop gunpowder and metalworking. Of course, these amounts of time need to be adjusted, but that's what both WIP writing is and what feedback is for.
I am still understanding the history behind technological advancement, so expect factors within the plan to change.
Magic is not used in the smelting of armor. It is not used in the smelting of anything. Magic is not useful for this.
Please refer to the Elder Scrolls series and how little advancement of anything has happened in ~300 years.
If you require an explanation from me, then I will point to faith and tradition as the reasons for lack of advancement in elven cultures. Obviously, strict faiths prevent much critical thinking, which suppresses change overall.
Again, I am still learning history of civilizations.
However, the loss of female rights is not exactly the plan. Why is due to Emeria being a matriarchal society, where, in case you are unaware, women rule (I might've forgotten to mention that). The first leaders of mankind will be female and will remain so for prolonged periods. After all, with no experience of a different mindset being available to them, why would humans think to suppress women when it was always women who were in command?
They're not based off of French society or even France.
Clearly, you missed the part where Emeria did care about it. Why will be elaborated upon once I can edit the OP.
I'm fairly sure I made it clear that Terrahn and Emeria are hostile nations; did I not? The idea of Terrahn investing resources into the to-be-UF should be implied that they intend to create a new ally to strengthen their side of the hostility. If you completely missed this, then I must question your ability to analyze.
Human are resilient; I hope you realize that. They are being offered assistance in a struggle to survive and are using it as much as they can, often abusing it, obviously.
France and the US are not the basis of either nation.
Ah, I see another aspect I failed to include. The king of Terrahn, as well as most of the populace, follow a religious faith which encourages fair treatment of living things, regardless of species. This forbids them to enslave anyone, human, elf or whatever. Though, as the lore would eventually reveal, the king doesn't exactly stay true to his faith.
There is no script, as there is no acting cast.
Working on that. I can't create an entire religion so quickly.
Your insulting tone is noted.
Not everyone can point and shoot a gun correctly. As well, much of combat in the time would have been melee, just as it was in the distant past.
I'm glad you realize that, as no nation is based off of the United States.
This entire paragraph is actually a short summary of a long-time list of events, if that was not clear by the fact that general statements were made throughout it. Most of my work related to this tale has been just sorting out the beginning, so this paragraph only states where the story is leading later on. Again, I must question your ability to analyze.
Like, I can get some of this. Elves are long lived and incredibly powerful, they have to think on the scale they do to win. But you're basically insisting that, like, the issues of 1675 would still be as prominent in the thoughts of a modern day government. That the considerations of 1675 would still be germane to tactics and strategy of the modern day.
You also have not!America as the unambiguous aggressors waging a moral crusade against a foreign power and damn the consequences.
...So props to accuracy to life I guess dohoho.
I won't even begin to bring up the issue with the US, again.
The UF's goal was to liberate the human slaves still remaining in Emeria. Obviously, this sort of goal would not be possible without severe casualties and consequences, but the UF determined it necessary. It was definitely a flawed decision, but, with humans being fueled by anger of knowing that slavery still exists and that they are the target species, they jump to conclusions and resort to violence, just as you jump to conclusions and assume that every nation is based off of those involved in the inspiring wars, then, sometimes, use implied insults to slash at my planned story. Just as violence was not exactly necessary with the UF's action, insulting what does not make sense is not exactly necessary. That's called personal incredulity, not constructive criticism.
Humans were not always right and were often too prideful, just as elves. That's a point of the story: The UF isn't exactly the good guy, this part of the lore just talks about their history.
I've thought about it for a while, and I came up with a possible idea that would paint the UF as somewhat evil for the Great Liberty War: Emeria reduced their numbers of slaves, due to less need for them, and the UF was unaware of this change. Not only; they were fed false intel from Terrahn in attempt to weaken Emeria to end the conflict between each nation. This goes back to the king's faith and how he feels overly prideful about his own nation and people. This idea, like the main, is a WIP.
This point of yours is actually entirely valid. I will change this shortly.
I actually hadn't realized that the whole point of Operation: Overlord was about Normandy, instead paying attention to the name Omaha. This name will be changed once I have a suitable replacement.
Also, this sort of writing is blatant WIP material. Obviously, it will change.
You're missing quite a bit of the story's point, here. Perhaps it's because of my sleepy haste in typing the OP and the fact that ~90% of the lore is not mentioned here, as it's still in the works.
I'm trying to create an unorthodox tale revolving around various nations and their cultural norms, as well as conflicts. Mankind is placed at the center stage for this piece, but a lot of the parts I have created actually involve the elven nations and their affairs. Usually, slavery is left out of these extra pieces because it's unnecessary to include. The UF blows the concept of being enslaved way out of proportion as a sort of propaganda to fight against pro-slavery nations, but they will end up ignoring those enslaving nations that ignore humans entirely, such as Saerr.
I never claimed this was imaginative, so your statement in the regard can only be taken as an insult. Not that I am bothered, but I am just stating a fact of human recognition.
Of course this is going to be bad at first. Early drafts of great stories were awful and lacked important detail. However, this, in particular, lacks detail for one of two reasons:
- I have been writing a large essay and just needed to throw this out of my head so I could sleep.
- My field of expertise is rocketry, not civilizations, hence why the UF would later have a space program.
Hopefully, the answers to TenfoldShields' post should reveal a few of these answers to you.
You know I can read that, correct? Your insult is noted.
May every empty parking space you find instead contain a motorcycle.
I am not writing anything metaphorical or symbolic. I don't know how you could have possibly thought of this.
Inspiration =/= Basis. Inspiration =/= Same.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
>Creates civilization that heavily exploits and disadvantages women from the start.
>"Women will be in charge."
>Inconsistent and implausible amounts of stasis.
>"Religion did it."
>Explicitly draws inspiration from the Revolutionary War.
>"France and America aren't the basis for either nation".
>Wants to create an unorthodox setting to tell unorthodox stories.
>"I never claimed this was imaginative".
Your reply post got a 6.5 from the judges panel, those were some impressive gymnastics but you utterly botched the landing.
Early drafts of awful stories were also awful and lacked important detail.
>"Women will be in charge."
>Inconsistent and implausible amounts of stasis.
>"Religion did it."
>Explicitly draws inspiration from the Revolutionary War.
>"France and America aren't the basis for either nation".
>Wants to create an unorthodox setting to tell unorthodox stories.
>"I never claimed this was imaginative".
Your reply post got a 6.5 from the judges panel, those were some impressive gymnastics but you utterly botched the landing.
Early drafts of awful stories were also awful and lacked important detail.
Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
You know it's a declaration, correct? I mean if you consider me going "Yeah I don't like this" in relatively light terms and then actually providing a reason as of why as an insult then you're in for a rude awakening.
Like, I could just b extremely snide about the whole "Religion is the key factor in stasis."
OR I could point you towards St. Thomas of Aquinas, one of the greatest philosophers who as the name implies got a sainthood for it, or to Blaise Pascal- Maybe even Charles Babbage. I could point out to Aristoteles and other Greek scientists, who did not deny the spiritual component of life in their works, who were men who still believed in a faith and were critcal thinkers.
I could point out to how during the early medieval ages monasteries and convents were vital for the preservation of Roman and Greek knowledge, and how the religious dimension in the middle east did not prevent them from discovering various scientific concepts and developing medicine at a different pace than Europe and whatnot.
I'd point you to the fact that civilizations actually rarely stagnate technologically because of dogmas- Mostly because civilizations rarely stagnate for one single reason.
Except all great stories started with that. A story draft. You did by worldbuilding, which tends to be extremely counter-intuitive to actually writing a good/interesting story. Generally writing stories tend to revolve around first going "So, what I am going to write about? X thing, I guess." You got that pat down by wanting to write about slavery, then careered off the path by deciding to instead build a whole world around it.
You want to write a tale? Start with a beginning, a middle and possibly an end, with a cast of characters acting out a plot hewed in accordance to the thematics you want to tell.
Harbinger Ace
Destroyer of Worlds
- Location
- Aloha, Oregon, USA
How, exactly, does it disadvantage women from the start? Have I missed an important detail, again?
Harbinger Ace
Destroyer of Worlds
- Location
- Aloha, Oregon, USA
Actually, the story started as a space program that I had to build a world around, as the planet, in question, is fictional. The slavery and elven bits were included only because friends bugged me endlessly to include it. Shall I tell them to fuck off and remove it all for the sake of the story's integrity?
Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
Yeah, I'd say so.
Like, your objective here is to tell a story about a rocket program? If that'st it then you can just write the history of the world in broad strokes. I mean, think about it coached in IRL terms: How much does the events of the French revoltuion actually matter to NASA?
Child-rearing and childbirth are incredibly resource-intensive and caring-intensive processes. You'd have not a lot of strength to actually partecipate in the poltical side of things when you are stuck raising 5 kids, with one more coming your way. Likewise, getting pregnant early cuts a lot of time out of the time you can spend educating yourself- Shit, it happens with teen moms in the modern world, so you can imagine how hard it'd be in a society much less advanced.
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
All this seems to disagree with you screaming in my face as I entered the thread.
I'm going to say this right away: This is up its own ass. You might as well call it the first book of an epic new cycle. Don't tell me what your world is, sell me on it. I can get people to go along with like, every crazy ass idea I come up with by coming up with a pitch line but this isn't one. It covers everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter to Pounded By President Bigfoot.
Epic Original Fantasy Worlds (Donut Steal) are a dime a dozen, you need to sell it before you get down to long winded timelines and backstory and everything. What's the back of your book say? Like, I'll take a look at it but you've already lost me here by not having a concise idea up front about what you want to do.
- Location
- Portland, OR
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This has so many issues I don't even know where to start, but there are a couple I'm really fixating on because it's practically insulting. Somehow your humans go from crossbows and primitive muskets (don't even get me started on those) to steam engines and semi-automatic firearms in the course of only a century. And nuclear weapons in the course of less than 400 years. Do you have the faintest idea of the kind of economic and industrial base this requires?
Firearms first came to Europe in the 14th century. But for a very long time firearms were all made individually, custom essentially, no two exactly the same. If your gun broke, you couldn't go to the gunsmith and buy a replacement part, you had to give him your broken gun so he could make a custom part specifically for your gun. Or buy a new one. The earliest surviving European firearm we've found was dated to 1396, interchangeable parts only started to really be used in the manufacturing of guns with Simeon North in the early 1800s. One of the very earliest semi-automatic firearms went through successful trials in the Netherlands in 1896, long after the success of interchangeable parts.
Semi-automatic rifles might seem like no big thing today, but have you ever seen the plans for one? Have you ever looked through the technical drawings? I have. Because this is literally the kind of thing I'm going to be doing for a living. A semi-automatic rifle is a complex piece of equipment full of intricately designed parts. Sure it's no spinal implant or space shuttle circuit board, but you cannot equip a military with semi-automatic firearms if you don't have machine tools to make the parts. Not only because the parts require precision but because a semi-automatic weapon has more moving parts than a percussion cap weapon, or even a bolt action, and therefore more failure points. They shoot faster, they reload faster, but they're still more likely to break, so you need a supply of replacement parts, interchangeable parts that you won't have without machine tools. Machine tools that wouldn't have been in high demand without the increased mechanization of various industries during the Industrial Revolution. And the Industrial Revolution? Border controls were more effective, the spread of disease less severe, infant mortality rates decreased, the workforce got larger, agriculture became more efficient, and surplus workers were forced into cottage industries and from there into factories, all of these things led to the Industrial Revolution, all in turn caused by other factors. Suffice to say, the process that leads from primitive firearms to semi-automatic rifles is very long, very complicated, and reliant on a huge variety of economic and environmental factors. Things that wouldn't take place over the course of 150 years. That's not even getting into the difficulty of building guided missiles at all, let alone ICBMs.
Firearms first came to Europe in the 14th century. But for a very long time firearms were all made individually, custom essentially, no two exactly the same. If your gun broke, you couldn't go to the gunsmith and buy a replacement part, you had to give him your broken gun so he could make a custom part specifically for your gun. Or buy a new one. The earliest surviving European firearm we've found was dated to 1396, interchangeable parts only started to really be used in the manufacturing of guns with Simeon North in the early 1800s. One of the very earliest semi-automatic firearms went through successful trials in the Netherlands in 1896, long after the success of interchangeable parts.
Semi-automatic rifles might seem like no big thing today, but have you ever seen the plans for one? Have you ever looked through the technical drawings? I have. Because this is literally the kind of thing I'm going to be doing for a living. A semi-automatic rifle is a complex piece of equipment full of intricately designed parts. Sure it's no spinal implant or space shuttle circuit board, but you cannot equip a military with semi-automatic firearms if you don't have machine tools to make the parts. Not only because the parts require precision but because a semi-automatic weapon has more moving parts than a percussion cap weapon, or even a bolt action, and therefore more failure points. They shoot faster, they reload faster, but they're still more likely to break, so you need a supply of replacement parts, interchangeable parts that you won't have without machine tools. Machine tools that wouldn't have been in high demand without the increased mechanization of various industries during the Industrial Revolution. And the Industrial Revolution? Border controls were more effective, the spread of disease less severe, infant mortality rates decreased, the workforce got larger, agriculture became more efficient, and surplus workers were forced into cottage industries and from there into factories, all of these things led to the Industrial Revolution, all in turn caused by other factors. Suffice to say, the process that leads from primitive firearms to semi-automatic rifles is very long, very complicated, and reliant on a huge variety of economic and environmental factors. Things that wouldn't take place over the course of 150 years. That's not even getting into the difficulty of building guided missiles at all, let alone ICBMs.
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the atom
Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
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Real life slave-holding states couldn't just deal with slaves through magic though. They came up with all sorts of legal and social ways to control and manage slaves because that's just what they had to do. If the slavers snarl up slaves with magic chains all the time however, there might less impetious to control the slave population through social means, because if the slaves have no physical way to do anything about it then the slaves have no reason to care how subjugated the slaves actually feel.
This of course begs the question of why the Elves didn't just show up and chain them again so uh...yeah.
'Big rich empire with few enemies ignores outside world, industrial revolution. Gets throat-punched by technologically advanced invaders who are attacking in the name of liberty' is in fact a half-decent summary of the Opium Wars, just sayin'.
I don't know what you think things were like in 1616 but this is essentially what happened.
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The first firearms came to Europe a long time before 1616. And believe it or not semi-automatic firearms hadn't been invented in 1716. I know, shocking what you learn when you read a book.
And if you had bothered to read the post, you would know the first primitive firearms date back to 1396, the earliest that we know of. And uh, they still didn't have missiles of any sort in 1796, let alone nukes. If they did I'd probably be speaking British right now.
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the atom
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Muskets weren't around in 1396 so I don't know where you were going with that.
Semiautomatic firearms made their first appearance at the end of the 17th century and steam engines were being tinkered with around that time as well.
~250 years later we *somehow* got missiles and nukes.
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According to wikipedia, you're wrong. If you have a better source, please share it.
Yeah, as the direct result of a frankly absurd amount of money only made possible by a literal world war between heavily industrialized nations. One incredible invention might strain probability, but would be acceptable. So many developments in such a short period of time is, well, not credible, and makes the nation just come off as more of a Sue than it already is.
the atom
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I was actually mixing up 'semi-automatic' with 'repeating' herp derp.
Well yes, but then there was a pretty specific impetus behind most military developments of some kind. All I'm saying is that 400 years is not a low amount of time to go from matchlocks to nukes.
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In the circumstances given by the OP it absolutely is, which is the point that DissMech was making. I could imagine a coherent world where such a thing happened, but the one described here is not that.
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A multichambered cylinder does not a semi-automatic weapon make, and you know it damn well. As for matchlocks, he didn't say any such thing. He said:
Now, I don't know what the fuck a 'powder ball rifle' is, since rifles have never used balls (and rifles have never been used in tandem with crossbows by anyone), but I do know crossbows fell out of usage in most of Europe by 1520 and therefore, we're probably talking about arquebuses and hand cannons. You know shit like this:
And this:
Not this:
Because by the time that gets invented, crossbows are obsolete, and nobody uses them anymore. So no, we're not talking about a jump from matchlocks to nukes in 400 years (and matchlocks to semi-automatics in 100 is still fucking stupid because semi-automatics and revolvers are not the same thing), we're talking about a jump from hand cannons to ICBMs in 400 years, which means that in 1776 the American Rebellion should have met crushing defeat as the British Empire showered the hapless colonials with intercontinental tea missiles.
the atom
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This is not the point DissMech was making in that specific paragraph. Ref:
You caught me Dissmech, I was actually trying to deceive you.
1520+400 is what?
Seriously, I get that a resemblance to anything Baen throws many SVers into a bloodrage, but this is absolutely the most ridiculous hill you could have chosen to die on.
People are drawing connections between your setting and the American Revolution because you specifically made a number of references to the American revolution. It sorta throws people off y'know?
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Well I find confusing semi-automatic weapons with revolvers incredibly implausible for some odd reason.
1920. 25~ years before the development of the nuclear bomb, and 37 years before the first true intercontinental ballistic missile, one driven by a World War that cost millions of lives and forced both sides to make loads of new developments as they sought any advantage over their enemies, the other driven by a Cold War between two superpowers that threatened to plunge Europe into yet another horrendous bloodbath. Neither of these is present in this setting, especially when you consider the fact that the humans curbstomped their supposedly terrifying former captors, they executed the Queen literal days after the initial landings, there's no good reason to develop nukes. Not only do you fall decades short even if you use the most charitable interpretation of the early firearm timeframe (which quite frankly is ridiculous considering it means the uneducated slave race compressed 130 or so years of firearm development into a few decades), the events that drove the development of both nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles are both entirely absent.
the atom
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Indeed, it was a conspiracy.
(And for the record it wasn't revolvers)
Yes, this fantasy setting is indeed different from the incredibly specific chain of events that we refer to as 'history'. It is also a whole 25 years off.
I don't know about you but I think that's a pretty far cry from 'intercontinental tea missiles in 1776'.
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You seem to be missing the forest for the trees, here. It isn't just the time, it's the structural elements that cause military technology to develop in the first place. The OP seems to be suggesting that the Sue nation somehow went from a nation of freed slaves without any real industry or significant infrastructure (cultural or otherwise) to having modernish technology faster than Earth did, with basically none of the things that caused technology to progress IRL. And the tea missiles thing is a reference to the fact that hand cannons were around in 1396 Europe.