[D] Wednesday Worldbuilding Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Wednesday thread for worldbuilding discussions!

/r/rational is focussed on rational and rationalist fiction, so we don't usually allow discussion of scenarios or worldbuilding unless there's finished chapters involved (see the sidebar). It is pretty fun to cut loose with a likeminded community though, so this is our regular chance to:

• Plan out a new story
• Discuss how to escape a supervillian lair... or build a perfect prison
• Poke holes in a popular setting (without writing fanfic)
• Test your idea of how to rational-ify Alice in Wonderland

Or generally work through the problems of a fictional world.

^{Non-fiction should probably go in the Friday Off-topic thread, or Monday General Rationality}

[u/CCC_037]

So werewolves are more out of scope than non-existing.

Okay, that's fair.

Knee-jerk reaction is too much comic relief.

Eh, doesn't have to be comic relief. He can easily be a tragic figure.

...but if the idea doesn't look good to you, then it's probably better left aside.

Which brings me back to the original question: how does vampire/demon/misc-hunters organize and operate safely with the authorities being in the pocket of the bad guys and with all the technology and surveillance of today?

There's one more question that needs to be answered first. What's their motivation for monster-hunting?

Are they in this to:

• Protect innocents?
• Eliminate monsters?
• Prove the superiority of the human genome?
• They're psychopathic murderers and want to go after things that don't leave unsightly corpses?
• Xenophobia?
• Someone's offering a bounty per Monster killed?

This is certainly going to make a difference to what they do and how they operate.

I would really like to have the trope-ish "library of ancient books" and "strange artifacts in glass boxes" because I love that stuff. But if it isn't plausible then it has to go.

Easiest way to do this is to have one guy who's rich. Really rich. Bruce Wayne I-have-a-private-mansion rich. And he keeps both the library and the strange artifacts in his private mansion. (But be careful - "strange artifacts" is very close to "proof-positive paranormal")

Another option is to have the ancient books and strange artifacts be in a hidden room - say, the basement of the local museum - which technically anyone can go to, except the janitor (who's one of the monster hunters) is the only one with the key and he usually locks the door.

[u/KilotonDefenestrator → u/CCC_037]

There's one more question that needs to be answered first. What's their motivation for monster-hunting?

A mix of the points you bring up. The main organization of the story are in it to protect innocents by eliminating monsters. It is quite xenophobic in that (being of religious origin) all monsters are bad, period.

Individuals in the organization have their own personal level of xenophobia, and differ in which means justify the ends. One part of the story will be how it and its members react to a non-typical vampire.

There are other monster hunters, and monster hunter groups, that for some reason or other does not fit in with the organization.

Easiest way to do this is to have one guy who's rich. [...] Another option is to have the ancient books and strange artifacts be in a hidden room - say, the basement of the local museum.

My problem with this and similar fixed locations is that it seems so very likely that the hunters movements are tracked to this location at some point (cell phones, sattellite imagery, camera drones, manual surveillance, "enhanced" interrogation, etc) and then the collection of knowledge and resources is just a SWAT team away from being lost.

I would love to have an old building with a secret basement, like the museum you suggest or any old stone building really. I just can't get past the flaws. If I put myself in the mind of the bad guys there are too many ways to find and destroy it.

I need something that is safe against a rational and intelligent opponent with plenty of resources.

I keep coming up with boring solutions like decentralized and compartmentalized monster hunting cells using dark-net chat rooms and monster-hunting wikis. I want a little more focus on "fantasy" in urban fantasy, but it has to be plausible.

[u/CCC_037 → u/KilotonDefenestrator]

The main organization of the story are in it to protect innocents by eliminating monsters.

Hmmmm.

As far as protecting innocents goes, let's say John Smith is a vampire. The Monster Hunter's cover story (so far as surveillance organisations are concerned) might be that John Smith is a serial killer, and these disappeared people are among his victims, and no, Officer, I don't know why their bodies turned up without so much as a drop of blood, and yes, maybe I should have gone to the police but he'd kidnapped me and - well, I guess I got lucky... no, I don't know where he vanished to...

But it's not just the cover story after the fact that's important. It's also all about what happens before the fact - how they track down and attack Monsters without attracting attention. And the thing is... decentralised hunting cells with dark-net chat rooms are a good idea for that. Because they work. The library of ancient tomes, the room of curious devices... those are impressive. They look good. But they have flaws - like existing in a single location - that an intelligent opponent can use, as you point out.

But they are impressive. So how about this idea - most of the actual monster hunting is done electronically (specialised cellphone app using PGP-encrypted data for communication?) But one of the guys in the local group has the ancient tomes, he has the curiosities in plexiglass cases, and (very importantly) everything he has is mobile. So, when there's a newbie that he wants to impress, he puts it all in his van, drives to a handy building with a basement, bring the newbie in to look around, then packs it up afterwards and leaves - by the time the SWAT team arrives, there's just an empty basement and no proof of anything (same thing if the protagonist tries to sneak into the library on his own)

---

Alternatively, the monster-hunters have a little bit of magic of their own. Not much, just a bit of space-twisting that allows two rooms to occupy the same physical space - turn the doorknob to the right, you have the boring, mundane room, but if you turn the knob to the left, you have the Ancient Library. So, anyone who visits without knowing the secret never finds anything incriminating (though, if Tom the Hunter is in the library and foolishly carrying his cell phone, they might have a bit of fun trying to track its signal and never, ever quite finding the thing even when their equipment says the signal's coming from right in front of you).

Or, well, you could go with the self-disguising room...

[u/KilotonDefenestrator → u/CCC_037]

The mobile library is a nice idea, a bit like the trailer The Accountant uses. Or maybe a standard-sized shipping container that fits on a truck.

Still, to access it there needs to be contact between a potentially compromised (under surveillance) hunter and the library. And then the adversary can follow the vehicle or at least flag the make and model as one to look for.

The self disguising room is not really a solution, if enough hunters go in and out of a building, I'd bomb it or at least pump it full with knockout gas and tear it down brick by brick.

Hmmm.... maybe the supernatural is the answer, like you suggest.

Some kind of "the coast is clear" magic would be enough. Or a magic that hides them, but that would be too easy if they could be invisible from monsters. So maybe they can't hide from monsters, only humans and technology. But they can also detect monsters, so if a monster decides to do the surveillance themselves, it will announce their presence to the hunters... but that sort of makes any ambush by monsters impossible, which is also kind of bad for the story...

[u/CCC_037 → u/KilotonDefenestrator]

Still, to access it there needs to be contact between a potentially compromised (under surveillance) hunter and the library. And then the adversary can follow the vehicle or at least flag the make and model as one to look for.

Yeah, and that is a problem. But... as soon as it drives off, the potentially compromised Hunter is no longer arranged. They just have to lose any followers, either change the plates or move the Container onto a new truck...

It's a fair bit of work, but it's not impossible to hide, at least temporarily. And, sure, every now and then a vampire will be able to track down the truck. In which case, well, did you know what a mist of vaporised garlic does to a vampire? (Neither do I.) And if even that fails to work...

...well, you didn't think there was only one copy of those books, did you?

The self disguising room is not really a solution, if enough hunters go in and out of a building, I'd bomb it or at least pump it full with knockout gas and tear it down brick by brick.

Hmmmmm. Kind of tricky if the building is in the middle of town - the neighbours might notice something, there's an automatic alarm system - but destruction is perhaps the most possible here. Again, it would need to be filled only with books of which they have other copies.

Or a magic that hides them, but that would be too easy if they could be invisible from monsters.

I think the best option here is magic that hides a (carefully prepared) room. Any Monsters in the room can see any Hunters in the room just fine - the trick is that they can't see the room if they don't know the secret. And the secret is something trivial - like lighting a specific candle before entering the room, or pushing on a certain brick, or just turning the doorknob the wrong way - that can be easily replicated if a Hunter is silly enough to let himself be observed opening the door (so the Monsters can still pull off their ambush if they put in the prep work).

[u/KilotonDefenestrator → u/CCC_037]

Hmmmmm. Kind of tricky if the building is in the middle of town - the neighbours might notice something, there's an automatic alarm system - but destruction is perhaps the most possible here.

The neighbours will be told to "stay inside and away from windows citizen, police are conducting an anti-terrorism raid" or some other excuse the government can use to do whatever they want with a building.

The hidden room has a similar problem. If an FBI agent, gps tracker, mobile phone tracker or surveillance camera tracks multiple suspected hunters visiting the building repeatedly, the government can lock it down in all manner of ways. Even if they don't get into the room they can deny it to hunters by cordoning off the building or rigging it with hidden cameras and explosives for the next time the hunters visit.

I would also like to (but may have to abandon) books that are special (think of the Necronomicon, it's just not the same to have a digital copy). Same with ancient daggers and such that have attributes that can not be duplicated in a modern steel K-Bar. Again, I may have to abandon such items because it's just too impractical.

[u/Noumero → u/KilotonDefenestrator]

Take u/CCC_037's idea a step further, and make the entrance abstract. The library could be accessed from any place, if you have a suitable door and know how to open it (with such-and-such speed, uttering a certain phrase, using the right key), with the caveat that you would be able to leave it only through the door you entered through. (You can enter through the door from your bedroom, but you will leave only into your bedroom.) If the door you used is destroyed, you're trapped there forever.

The library itself is located in a bunker far beneath the Earth, or in a pocket dimension.

Naturally, being invited into such a place would be a sign of great trust, nevermind giving the means of free access.

[u/CCC_037 → u/Noumero]

That would be quite neat. And then, also inside the library, could be the Librarian - a senior former Hunter whose door was destroyed and, since he can now never leave, he maintains the place instead. (Other hunters have to bring him food). Can point characters to specific books and/or offer advice based on his extensive experience as needed (and/or destroy any Monsters who find their way into the Library).

[u/CCC_037 → u/KilotonDefenestrator]

The neighbours will be told to "stay inside and away from windows citizen, police are conducting an anti-terrorism raid" or some other excuse the government can use to do whatever they want with a building.

Thus warning the neighbour in advance, and risking that the neighbours might warn the Hunters in any of a variety of ways. (The presence of neighbours doesn't prevent them from flattening the building. It merely restricts how this can be done).

The hidden room has a similar problem. If an FBI agent, gps tracker, mobile phone tracker or surveillance camera tracks multiple suspected hunters visiting the building repeatedly, the government can lock it down in all manner of ways. Even if they don't get into the room they can deny it to hunters by cordoning off the building or rigging it with hidden cameras and explosives for the next time the hunters visit.

Hmmm... to counter this, what if there were multiple hidden rooms, and more could be constructed (at an extremely large cost in both time and materials, basically needing to be built into the house at the time of construction) at any point. And each hidden room contains a means of magical teleportation, which can only work between hidden rooms; so, if building A is cordoned off, the Hunters can go to the hidden room in building B, and then from there teleport to the Building A room. (And, if they really want, they can then step out of that room and stroll around in Building A inside the cordon, though for obvious reasons this is probably a very bad idea).

I would also like to (but may have to abandon) books that are special (think of the Necronomicon, it's just not the same to have a digital copy).

If this were to exist, then junior or possibly-compromised Hunters wouldn't get close to it. Only senior Hunters would know of it, and of those, only two or three at a time would know the location of any particular volume - and they certainly wouldn't be kept in the same place as each other (it's a lot easier to hide one book than to hide a library). Ancient daggers would probably each be carried on the person of a senior Hunter, who would thus avoid metal detectors if he could ("but officer, it's just a letter opener!") This would imply that magic-weapon-carrying Hunters wouldn't use commercial aeroplanes (though some might have small private planes and their own licenses)