Worldbuilding Month Day 10: Worlds of Difference

[aldersprig]

March is Worldbuilding Month! Leave me a question about any of my worlds, and I will do my best to answer it! (I need more questions, guys)
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This tenth one is from ladyRowyn: Do you have any worlds that aren’t Earth-like in general shape/climate/vegetation? why/why not?

Okay, I have to think about that one!

Okay, so something like 9/10 of my worlds are immediately out of the running because they’re “in a world much like our own;” i.e., urban fantasy, for the most part, the sort of thing where it’s very familiar to readers because it’s Earth (and usually America), just with magic: Aunt Family, Stranded World, Fae Apoc, Planners, Facets, Shadow Rebellion, Tír na Cali, Bug Invasion, Fairy Town, Cracks, Science! (okay, Science! is Earth, just with Science!), Inner Circle.

Then there’s settings where we never really see the world - Dragons Next Door, Unicorn/Factory…

Okay, things actually set on a different world: Reiassan, which is goats and linen and rice and parsnips, just after a little ice age. That’s pretty earth-like. I mean, the continents are different…

Things Unspoken is a giant sprawling Empire in something that is pseudo-European in many ways. I haven’t really looked at the climate, but I haven’t explored much of the World, although there is at least a map.

Space Accountant is on a ship in space. Foedus Planatarum is in space - but starts with Earth, if you look far enough back. Jahnan’s planet would be a lot different from Earth, but we’ve never seen it.

I’m thinking the closest I get here is enclosed environments - asteroids, that sort of thing. Maybe something on Colonies, but they don’t get a whole lot of attention.

Now that I’ve looked at this, I think the “why not” is that, while I enjoy worldbuilding, I’ve never really gotten a kick out of “how do things turn out if the environment is completely different?” and that’s really what those stories seem to be, to me. But now I might feel the need to try something like that, because challenges.

Comments

[clare_dragonfly]

I'm not sure that Science! is entirely distinguishable from magic anyway ;)

Sounds like a fun challenge! For you. Not me. (The part of worldbuilding I really like is the people part. When people start talking about "here's how to create a brand-new planet" I get bored.)

[aldersprig]

People!

I love Rix’s Rensa world (Defensive Diaspora) mostly for the people and the overarching idea, for instance.

But I love all the geographical detail and world-building she puts into Nai.

I dunno. I get a little overwhelmed by the planet stuff.

Portal Bound is a very different planet, but other than the Portals, it’s pretty earthlike.

[kelkyag]

Science! may well be indistinguishable from magic. :)

[aldersprig]

Ah-ha! Yes, I’d forgotten about that!!

[sauergeek]

The immediate non-Earth setting I come up with is Niven's Ringworld. I've seen an essay on using a Dyson sphere, instead of a ring, which largely concluded that a Dyson sphere would be a lot harder. Niven also did a setting called the Integral Trees involving free-floating trees within a gas ring around a neutron star.

Schlock Mercenary seems to be leading up to a Dyson sphere setting, but we haven't actually seen enough of it yet. It recently did an unimaginably ancient constructed habitat -- essentially a giant self-contained space station big enough to have its own weather -- without ever referring to the origin of its builders.

I've occasionally wondered what sort of place would generate some of the characters in various stories: the Hooloovoo from Hitchhiker and the hydrogen core cluster intelligence -- or really any of the non-meat races -- mentioned in Bisson's "They're Made Of Meat".

[aldersprig]

There’s a story I remember reading a couple times - maybe in Anthonology, maybe somewhere else - about a time-travel organization that has “stops” all along earth’s timeline, and there are times where humans go all energy-being IIRC.

World Tree! That’s def. a non-Earth setting.

[kelkyag]

Vas's world?

Though if you want something mostly like humans running around outside without environment suits and being able to eat things that aren't grown in vats or instantiated out of energy or something, you've got a setting with at least some earth-like elements. Looking at the un-earth-like elements and how their existance makes the 'verse what it is seems more interesting to me than changing everything. "Magic" anywhere. Sira in Reiassan. The "gods" or whatever they actually that've left strange huge fingerprints in Things Unspoken -- or even the unburnt ash and its avatar(s). Unicorns that are also partly human.

You've started showing the world in Unicorn/Factory. And even when we're mostly seeing places shaped by sentient races, the world sneaks in -- the haunting at the natural history museum in Dragons Next Door, say.

[aldersprig]

Yeah, I wasn’t quite sure about the non-earth setting.

Sira’s a good point! And yes, Things Unspoken has some creeps stufffffs.