The Bookwyrm

...Why is it something though?

50 minutes ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

Not the nittygritty parts! 

That's all worldbuilding is, to be fair.

14 hours ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

I don’t know

maybe smth like the Death Star, where it can move but largely is stationary?

14 hours ago, Through The Living Glass said:

. . . so a space station? 

You could have it orbit a planet like a moon

I will say:

NOTHING in space is stationary.

Some things just accelerate far slower than other things.

I like space station though. I still want it to be an O'neill Cylinder because those are cool.

***

So the premise thus far is Humanity has expanded to the outer reaches of the Solar System, is on the brink of discovering FTL, and aliens come and visit them? If that is the case we might want to slighly lower the human's general tech level, cause they aren't yet interstellar. Or maybe they borrow tech from the aliens.

6 minutes ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

Well, okay

city sized works

That’s kinda what I meant when I said star destroyer

Sorry I'm being kind of pushy...

Also I forgot you mentioned Star-Destroyer sized and yeah that basically fits the bill.

Are you thinking space-station or ship?

2 minutes ago, Halcyon The Only said:

Can I make a slightly silly-in-the-head character or is this gonna be exclusively serious?

Uh

I dunno.

31 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

I like everything I've heard, but I'll need a summary

Also, my writing style will highly depend on whether or not I am listening to metal.

Once we have all the details down I'll probably go edit the original post to include the outline for the scene.

I want to try, but I probably won't be around for super long...that's not an issue though, as something terrible can happen to my character.

51 minutes ago, Argenti said:

I was hoping for bigger. Like, the planet is one.

Bishop rings are a type of space habitat. Imagine a ringworld, but orbiting like a moon around a planet.

They don't necessarily have to orbit anything.

33 minutes ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

Okay

i’ll just say the size of an average neighborhood 

What if we go a little bigger?

Something like this:

So like...city sized, rather than neighborhood sized. (This is called an O'Neill Cylinder; this one's kind of on the smaller end of what you might see in sci-fi)

Or something like this:

Where the blue habitat pod is the size of a (small) city. (This is like an interstellar ark type ship.)

Both of those are pretty big, but it gives us more room to do stuff. Either we're people living on the ship/station and have to deal with a problem that arises, or we're a group that investigates the ship/station after contact is lost. If we are leaning horror, that second option would add to the vibe, because we have this place meant to hold thousands or tens of thousands of people and it's completely abandoned. (But you don't have the daunting sense of scale a large-scale bishop ring would give you.)

Just now, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

Well, my idea is where y’all are on a gigantic megastructure/ship thing, and people are slowly disappearing.

How big is gigantic?

Cause I was thinking surface-area-roughly-equal-to-a-planet gigantic.

Okay, let's not let this die...

@Halcyon The Only @Through The Living Glass any more character ideas? Or is there anything you need from me before you start hammering down character ideas?

I guess we could consolidate, though.

Maybe a crew of explorers discover a huge alien structure, complete with an alien biosphere on its surface.

Though it seems hospitable at first, as "night" (whatever artificial darkening the structure has) falls, something horrific begins to emerge and hunt them. 

Or if we don't want that we can think of something else.

Either way I can work on some setting development.

Wait, we're doing Alien?

Or at least that vibe?

...I had a different setting idea...

....Can it happen on a megastructure?

(I am interested but my RP activity usually dies very quickly, and I'm only going to be around another month or so before my mission)

4 hours ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

 

I’m going to work “other nation” into my writing now.

@The Bookwyrm

wait wait wait

i can’t quote u but I have ideas.

What if, instead of Ferran being a turncoat, he instead refuses to fight? Like, “I’m tired of this war, and so are the people of both sides,” sorta stuff?

In my mind the reason Anna is rescuing him - regardless of his previous allegiance - is because he provides an advantage to her side. So if you do fit it in you still have to explain why it is that she's saving him.

I might also get rid of the "other" nations for simplicity's sake; we all have to go off the exact same worldbuilding for the experiment to work and I don't want to overcomplicate it.

By the way, here's the rough draft map I made:

OOH GUYS WAIT

What if Ferran is a turncoat? Like, he was an officer for the empire, decided to change sides for whatever reason, but got captured before the smaller nation (we're calling it Hearth, by the way) managed to get to him?

And they're sending Anna to save him?

And whatever clash they have comes from that?

This doesn't work if we want them to vaugley know each other but, I think it could add some interesting depth to their interaction, depending on how their loyalties and ideaologies are.

Just now, Magi said:

Ooo that sounds like a good idea, and I like the name!! We'd have to figure out how someone who values laws got thrown in prison, unless he really is just primarily a war prisoner.

Yes, war prisoner from the smaller nation, who got captured by the Great and Powerful Unnamed Empire

Those results say a lot about the kind of people on the Shard these days

36 minutes ago, Halcyon The Only said:

Ok so is this enough information for us to write? And we can fill in the gaps individually? 

I still need to do some worldbuilding. I want every detail to be the same version to version, only writing style different, as per the idea of the experiment. And in order to do that I want to make sure all the details are hammered out as much as possible.

21 minutes ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

good good good

for the other prisoner being rescued, he was born in the same village as the operative and was friends with her, but quietly climbed through the ranks as a tactical genius. He's honest, and caring, though has become exhausted with warfare, and has started to hate fighting.

good?

Sounds good. I'll go with whatever you decide on characters. I will say, maybe make it so it's been a while since they've seen each other.

Also, the rescuer is less of a soldier and more of like a special agent, in my mind. She doesn't do tactics or battlefield fighting; she does sneaky operations and assasinations and whatnot.

23 hours ago, Magi said:

Yeah, I was thinking just typical dnd level stuff, spell based and powered by mana, that sort of thing.

Ummm can I jump in here and say I'd really rather not do it based on the Cosmere? I'm not against fanfiction, I've written my fair share, but using a Cosmere magic system would mean I have to look it up to remember the details, and I've avoided the Coppermind because of WaT spoilers . . . . I'd rather do something vague then try and copy a Cosmere thing.

If you want help with the worldbuilding, let me know!

5 hours ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

we can do generic worlds that don't need much world building instead, like a generic sci fi

5 hours ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

HEY HOW COME I WASNT PINGED!

This seems so interesting!

I agree here. The whole point of this thread is to highlight different styles of writing, so giving something concrete kinda defeats the purpose.

19 hours ago, Through The Living Glass said:

I actually agree with JM! Not for the same reasons, but I think it'd be fun to do something more original.

Well, "original."

Y'all get what I'm saying.

23 hours ago, Halcyon The Only said:

I would personally agree with the Cosmere thing. 

Okay. That's fair; maybe I'm just biased because I'm super familiar with at least Allomancy and some of Surgebinding, so I'd be able to write it easily.

I guess my general idea for suggesting it is it would ideally be something we're already familiar with, so it would cut down on time developing a context and allow more focus for writing, and comparing styles in something we're all familiar with. But I'm totally on board with making original settings.

(Also there is Time Machine function on the Coppermind to turn it back to a version before WaT came out, Magi, if you didn't already know)

And I might take you up on your offer for worldbuilding help; I didn't have much time to do it today. 

My idea right now is that there's a generic medieval empire (super original) that is slowly waning in power. It's in conflict with another smaller nation, and that's the war that the scene is a backdrop of. I haven't decided if the smaller nation's a previously conquered nation that declared independence, or a conquered nation trying to declare independence, or a nation that's in the process of an attempted invasion, or a nation that struck against the empire for some reason, or if they're fighting for a resource, or something else entirely. I just know there's a war between two nations, one an empire, one a smaller country.

The scene in my mind takes place at night, at a fortress-tower-walled town/base thingy. The viewpoint character is a young woman, a special operative, who's tasked with rescuing a prisoner from her side of the war. (I've had her fighting for the smaller nation, but we could have her be on the empire's side too.) Her personality in my mind is like if you gave Spensa Vin's upbringing and job. Serious, a little snarky, not easy to get along with, very skilled. (Also a cliche. You guys can work on that. It's just the vibe I have in mind.)

Her magic involves solidifying and manipulating shadows. Not super complicated; she can use them to climb up walls, make sharp tentacles to attack with, hide herself, stuff like that. (Think Pride from FMAB if you know who that is.)

She uses her magic to sneak in and break the guy out, and then supposedly character drama erupts due to a situation she was unaware of.

What do we think of that?

I'll be honest I read the title of this thread and thought it meant chilling as in spooky or unnerving.

1 minute ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

wait wait can I do the prisoner then? @Halcyon The Only

If you do I just want to add this input; this is a military person. They have high tactical value, likely a commander or strategist, or maybe a powerful magic-user (depending on what the magic system is). Highly experienced. 

Other than that, go with whatever you want. That's just what's needed for the scenario.

1 minute ago, Halcyon The Only said:

This looks good guys  I can do character if y’all want. I’m expert :DD

Let me figure out the worldbuilding first so you can use that to figure out the characters?

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

I was thinking more of just friends, but I'd be fine with either

so about the prison, I was kinda thinking of a maximum security jail, with magical defenses(?)

In my mind it was more of a military base that has a prison inside it; because, like I said, this is a warzone.

I also had an idea for a rudimentary magic system that wouldn't be complicated but would also fit the "dangerous weapon" vibe you mentioned.

1 minute ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

not exactly related to the scene, but I love the idea of the agent being kinda of a dangerous weapon for the government to use, who's not exactly on best terms with them, and is only called out for the really dangerous missions.

Also, should he have a relationship with the prisoner?

Okay, I'm good with that. Like I said, I'm just going to focus on worldbuilding and maybe pitch some character ideas, but other than that I'll let you peoples handle that part.

Relationship? Yes. Romantic relationship? I don't know. I wasn't thinking that, but if you want to you could.

(Also in my mind the rescuer was female...but that was my mind.)

16 minutes ago, Ookla the Irreplaceable said:

the viewpoint character would use magic right?

yah, we could do that. Any ideas which ones? (it would be less fanfiction, and more same setting, right?)

1. Not neccessarily, but if we want that to be the case we can do it.

2. Probably cosmere stuff for familiarity. (...Isn't fanfiction anything you write that has to do with a franchise you like?) (Regardless we aren't worrying about that right now)

9 minutes ago, Spark of Hope said:

Ooh sounds fun! Is the crime decided?

I was thinking it would be a prisoner of war situation. So there are two nations at war, a vital prisoner from one side was captured by the other, and now the one side is sending an agent to rescue the prisoner. I'll hammer out the details soon and then let the people better at me than characters figure out what the relationship between the prisoner and rescuer is.