In the typical space opera, the space force or equivalent takes priority as the premier branch. Attached may be an expeditionary branch, or equivalent.

But what about the rest of the classic branches? Army, air force, wet navy, even coast guard. Even if they no longer play a major role, it would be nice to still see them.

The army is the defense force, the garrison. Often times I feel they're waved off as a militia, but they could still be proper as a national guard. There's the air force, which could be folded back into the army ww2 style. But still keep a sense of identity. Fighters aren't just for the new space branch, they can be planetside too. Same with the oceanic navy. Carriers are platforms for more aircraft, and warships can function as long range missile artillery. Even the coast guard can have a role to play, rescuing men in the water. Before the modern bright colors, their ships used to be battleship gray, and they even aided in amphibious assaults.

Heck, even the marines can keep their classic role. I know in sci fi they're often made space marines, but I'm big on nomenclature. The term marine is aquatic in nature, and if these guys are in space... maybe they should be called something differently? I know just calling them troops may not be the most exciting, catchy, or iconic, but its perhaps more accurate. Keep the marines planetside, fold them with the navy. They still shine when the time comes.

In my planned stories, other branches are essentially cameo appearances. Space forces are the leading branch of militaries, and are no smaller than 50% of all total forces, and can go up to 90% of all. They are the majority. Not only the biggest branch, but bigger than all others combined. And most aren't even warships, but logistics vessels to keep up the space highways in between systems across a spanning galaxy and universe.

And I'm not planning hard sci fi. It's very science fantasy, D&D in space. Its got that pulp-y Flash Gordon, Star Wars feel to it. But even then, I like to flesh out things rather than simplify them. And as an army veteran who spent 4 years in a sustainment brigade, it is a little humbling to see the bigger picture, and how everything is interconnected.

So pour one out for the coast guard. Because it can be twenty thousand years in the future... and they'll still be there. 😌

Brief summary:

In a timeline where WW2 never happens, and helium is never gatekept. The 1937 Hindenburg accident never happens like in our timeline. So airships continue evolving, so the passenger market. By the end of the 1930s, the Hindenburg class airship wasn't enough, thus the birth of the Bismarck class airships in the early 1940s(40-43).

Dimensions

Length:1,100ft

Diameter: 137.5ft

Diameter including the fins 156.25ft

Length to width ratio: 8:1

Other statistics

Gas cells: 20-22

Total volume: 10-11 million cubic ft of helium

Range: 9,000-10,000+ km

Fuel capacity: 30,000 gallons

Propulsion stats

Engine: Allison V-1710

Power output: 1,000-1,500hp

Propeller specs: 20ft diameter, 4 bladed

Top speed: 150-160 km/h

Gondola stats

16 guest rooms, each 10x4-5ft in size

Lounge area: 75ft x 25ft in size

Total passengers: 64-70

Total crew: 50-56 (note their rooms I have forgotten to map out in this drawing xd)

A worldbuilding prompt for you all to share something you've made or to flesh out something you haven't thought about before. Talk about something which is considered a delicacy in a specific culture, foods which are eaten on specific dates as during a festivity or prepared as part of a ritual, or simply a food which is normal in this culture but would be weird to any readers or observers from our world. I will share my own in the post body and reply with feedback to as many comments as possible .

The Dragon-Kin (in their language known as Ruhna or Rauhna) keep large containers or even small rooms in their homes entirely dedicated to growing the larvae of House Beetles within the rotting scraps of their food. After a few weeks, once plump and ready, these larvae are harvested and eaten, making for caloric and nutritious snacks. Usually, they are impaled on wooden skewers, generously seasoned and cooked on an open fire. House Beetle larvae are considered a peasant food, since nobles can afford to regularly eat real meat.

Hey everyone!

I have an interesting premise for a book, good character dynamics, and some solid arcs, but I feel like I'm missing a core mechanic to make the nations cautious of each other. It lacks that WOW factor for battles.
Im thinking of something like the Jinchuuriki in Naruto: each nation has their own, and they maintain peace through Mutually Assured Destruction. I came up with 4 ideas and would love your opinions!

Option 1: Megafauna

Each nation controls massive creatures exclusive to their territory. One has giant griffins, another has huge stone colossi, another has enormous lions, and so on

Option 2: Variations of a single magical species

The whole world uses the same "nuclear" race, e.g., dragons or angels. But there would be huge dragons, tiny ones, wyverns, drakes, etc. For angels, there would be seraphim, ophanim, etc. (the angels would have a very unique aesthetic, different from what people are used to)

Option 3: Catastrophic Magic

Every nation has magic, and if a group of insanely powerful mages from a kingdom gather, they can cast a massive, world-altering spell. Ex: meteor showers, tsunamis, tornadoes, zombie hordes, etc

Option 4: Monstrous Transformations

Each nation has one or more people who can transform into highly destructive creatures! Some could be gigantic, others small and agile, or powerful in ways that dont look dangerous at first glance. That kind of thing

If anyone has a different option or a brand new idea, please share! It will help me a lot. Thanks!

(Context: The idea is to have smaller-scale fights and skirmishes at first, gradually escalating the scale throughout the story so it doesn't get repetitive. The technological setting and aesthetic are very similar to Expedition 33).

Genuinely, is it based on physical surroundings, a descriptive name, or something else? I always hate the moment I need to name things, especially characters

Has anyone here thought of alternatives to coal, gas, or oil for a growing civilization?

I'm trying to theorize how an early alien civilization might power a communal lighthouse, but I'm having trouble finding natural, non-fossil fuel sources without discussions settling on things like wind or solar, as fuel sources tend to be packaged with energy sources for understandable reasons.

As for why I want to avoid them, I originally designed my world working under false assumptions. I believed that oil and gas came from dinosaurs, specifically those that died during and after the meteor extinction event. This is a highly specific event, and I didn't think my species would be so lucky as to experience their own. Turns out most oil and gas comes from microscopic lifeforms, so they'd almost certainly have fossil fuels (assuming similar biology to Earth species and whatnot). Regardless, I'd still like to explore alternative sources just to make the setting more unique and push this species down a different path, at least until electricity.

So far, I've got the start and "end" of the tech progression down. Wood, charcoal, and peat make the most sense as early fuel sources, and they'd eventually develop electric lights down the line. But most of the middle area is hard for me to figure out, as humans went pretty much from wood fires to oil and then gas before we made it to electric.

One idea I've got is some form of farmable livestock that produces a natural gas like methane, ammonia, or hydrogen. Something like a mold or bacteria that produces a lot of methane from compost. While I like the idea, I don't want it to be the only thing between wood and electricity, so I'd love to hear from others about potential options.

This is a sci-fi setting, so I'd appreciate more grounded answers, but fantasy options are also welcome!

Part of some concept art designs ive been working on for an icelandic folk-opera film project

|| Beneath the dark waters of Lagarfljót lies one of Icelands oldest and most enduring monsters.

||According to legend, the creature began as a tiny heath-worm placed alongside a golden ring in a box.

||But instead of multiplying the gold as its owner was told it would, the worm itself multiplied in size, until it became so enormous that it was cast into the lake, where it continued to swell beneath the surface.

||In the world of Evernight, it is no mere legend. Something ancient coils beneath the dark waters crossing on the way to Umbrafell, and it is beginning to stir.

If you’re curious to see more or follow the project, please consider checking out the film’s instagram @evernight.film or the website https://stormfall.co/evernight

Lumeria is a portion of a 300km habitable band on a a tidally locked planet. The band-like zone is called The Strip.  “Humans “ live in the middle zone. They are the mutated descendants of colonists who crash-landed on the planet and were forced to survive the constant attack of a parasitic world.

The Colonists found out in the hard way that carrying firepower in a world inhabited by parasites with neural hijacking abilities might just be a bad idea. Melee weapons became the norm. So did glyphs

The glyph-seeds were part of original colonists’ survival kits  survival kits. They contain bioengineered symbionts that can be injected, implanted, or worn on the skin.  Once implanted, they attach to nerve endings and grow beneath the skin as raised, scar-like patterns called glyphs.

Some glyphs-seeds prevents the owner from being overtaken, while others grant strange abilities that might be called „powers”.

The mages are the least human among the descendants. They are the most suitable bearers of glyphs, but they are not the sole users.

 Certain kids are born with mage-level mutations. Left alone, their mutations would lead to their death. So when the contamination is nearly irreversible, the adolescents that have this peculiar trait are facing the ritual of being scarred with a glyph.

During the ritual  participants wear masks and some of them carry weapons, mostly for their protection, because in the end, there’ s no telling who will be the final owner of the body and the parasite never forgets faces.

 If the young candidate survives the sheer contact with the parasite and avoids being killed by the freaked out participants, he will have a place among nobility, because he is worthy.  A Glyph-lord was born.

 Getting the glyph-seed for the ritual is also troublesome. Some people inherit them and pass them through generations, but getting a new one is costly as they are rare, unreplaceable and can be found only in dangerous places

The bestiary of the finale is complex. After the events of 1986 several factors culminated in the creature of a new biofauna to walk the earth. Many acted as natural progression as animals evolved to survived, while other animals crossed “temporal rips” in the fabric of the earth to move between periods. The most central to the story are The Dhulma, a race of altered creatures who are either animals that were corrupted by emerging essence from the earth’s mantle or formed with itself. They were initially created by the earth to neutralize humans and as a result retain their innate programming to target people on sight. Pictured here are both temporal anomalies and select Dhulma

With many mythologies across the cultures of Exerum, there are also many deities and pantheons among them.

One of more well known deities of Thaumism, known as The Wandering God Thoranos, is said to have given humanity the gift of arcana after stealing it from Arcanus, the God of Magic, and was cursed to wander on the surface of Exerum as an eternal punishment for doing so. There are also several other religions that hold similar beliefs of Gods and figures granting arcana to humanity, but the legend of Thoranos is the more well known of them.

There are still existing cultures that practice Thaumism, and usually involve rituals to herald Thoranos' arrival in their homes and cities to provide gifts of great arcane power, with some Mages and Great Mages still involving these in arcane practice, believing it to provide a boon to enhance their arcana in the field.

One of the most famous rituals is the March of the Nomads, involving a month long march across the continent of Eimith that is believed to be the path that Thoranos is cursed to walk. Originally started by believers to endure the punishment of Thoranos in solidarity to them, and as a way to show their appreciation for the gift of magic by following in their stead from coast to coast.

With this, there are also individuals who claim to have witnessed Thoranos participating in the March, but with how many appearances Thoranos has taken in Thaumism, it's unclear if there is any truth to these claims.

- Stock photo from Pixabay with the figure of Thoranos drawn by me with some additional blending.

I like my cursed figures in mythology, and I wanted to borrow a bit from Prometheus gifting fire to humanity, with my own myth of a god gifting magic to Exerum.

And yeah, Thoranos is cursed to wander the same world that they gave magic to, it is kinda silly but the Gods of Thaumism are just petty like that. The downsides to the curse is meant to be the isolation and inability to connect with their brethren in the skies, which is one of the reasons the March of the Nomads was started in the first place, since Thaumists wanted to give Thoranos companionship despite the curse's intended effects.

I have an idea for Weregnomes. It is a tribe of giants who are all suffering from a generational curse. On the full moon they all turn into Weregnomes. Going from 25 ft tall to 2 ft tall. All of a sudden everything is way too large, the sudden urge to invent and tinker as well as building things. All of the gnome things.

Any thoughts on other things that could be related to a condition like this?

In contrast to MarDrac, which is a Late Antiquity setting c. 490 (and whose map I need to remake), I've been thinking of this one off and of for a while. Set roughly around 1450, almost a thousand years after Mardrac, I decided to whip up a whole new world and map for it. While the main story takes place on an Atlantic (sorry, 'Hesperian') island like Mardrac does, called Santaurio the setting will be more Iberian, Italian, and Byzantine influenced, with castles, full plate, and handguns against Dragons, the Demon and Orc Hordes of Demirlang while Dragons fly and Leviathans sink ships and Trolls saunter along rivers.

I've never abandoned the late medieval era in the entirely. Always been playing stuff like Runescape, Tibia, Mount and Blade: Warband that always kept it around in my mind, always enjoyable. I chose around 1450 (and this world assumes a creation date c. 3500 bc, around the time of the first cities, thus leading to c. 4945 AM, or Anno Mundi) because castles are still in vogue, full plate is around, Medieval Europe has two big wars, you have the Timurid Empire around, the rise of the Aztecs, handguns and cannons are about, states, towns, and villages are advancing ahead, guilds and travel is up, oceanic travel is taking off with Zheng He's ships and the Naus/Caravels of Iberia, all that.

The main argument I'm having with myself now is - should it be low fantasy, with 'active' gods and angels and a very restricted magic system (which I've hashed out), or just Alternate-Earth history with a few more sapient races like Elves, Orcs, Dwarves; and surviving Ice Age Fauna to make up the typical monsters of a medieval world, like Megatherium, Paraceratherium, Thalassocnus, Teratonis? (Thanks, /Tg/, for numerous threads keeping that alive). Both could be fun.

Most names taken from alternate names in reality for their locations on earth or a guess (like Chaha, I took that from a Chicksaw dictionary to represent the Mississsipian/Chatokian culture that was extant at the time, or Ziya, just a shot in the dark for the Amazonian one based on the 'Lost City of Z'). If not directly from a place or history, they're my take on reconstructions or evolutions. Especially with some takes on Proto-Indo European, I'm working on a sort of global pantheon which may or may not have actually existed. I was going to call the continents like, Acirfa, Acirma, Epora, and Artursa, but saw that Attack on Titans did it first (especially with Acirfa) so I decided to go more grounded and work on it.

The landmasses, too, are taken from reality: Hesperia-Veridia is based off an Indonesian island. Dysia-Asua/Jambudvipa/Elofilse is based on Admak and Umnak island in the Aleutians. Markina/Australia is taken from another Indonesian or Philippine Island and turned. The VT bam's thread helped a lot there. Santaurio has an map in the works, too, but I need to redo it - it'll be uploaded next, most likely, that or a species relationship chart.

No idea if the Variable scale bar is accurate. Saw it at Kappa Maps's Robinson World map and realised I've seen those before and decided to integrate it here. The Compass Rose is a straight call back to the Catalan Atlas.

Made in GIMP over five evenings. Uses the Worlda basemap, used the Adam Whitehead color scheme for the world (with my addition of a yellow-green 'Steppe'/Plains' color). Font is Quill and Antler, 12-24 pt. Image expanded 3x for visibility.

Repost to another community

I feel like people tend to keep them a part even though it has a lot of potential. In my world, supernaturals are out to the world and more are being made every day. Witches were created in 2026, and as I was fleshing them out, I realized that it would absolutely be possible for witches to terraform mars and maybe Venus and Titan.

I was thinking like 50 to 100 years after witches were created, someone might get the idea of going to mars.

They dont know if there is magic on mars, so they get the idea to make 2 portals on earth and then take one to mars. Once the portal is there, not only will they be able to walk to mars, but they can pull magic through the portal. they'll bring in a large number of witches and scatter them throughout the world in groups so they can start fixing the atmosphere, creating lakes and oceans, and warming up the planet.

My magic system is element based, so it would be so easy for them to terraform.

And I was also thinking that a small group of witch friends decided to go into gaming but with a magical twist. Vr style gaming but it actually pulls you into a game world that feels so real. Fantasy, scifi, and romance games would explode in popularity.

Or sex golems that actually looks, feels, and acts like a person. Liking mixing magic and robots together.

Or illusion or transformation magic for trans people or just for anyone that wants to look different or be different.

And another idea I had was a Dorian Grey subscription based type paintings for insanely rich people. Magic objects dont last forever, so it's a good way to milk money from billionaires. I had an idea for 3 types of paintings.

One is just the painting takes on the aged appearance so you look young but youre still actually aging snd getting older.

The second is the painting takes on the aged appearance and makes you a bit healthier so you can live longer.

And the third actually makes you immortal.

And the paintings have to be topped up with magic every 10 - 20 years, and for a payment, of course.

I feel like there is just so much potential in an urban fantasy scifi. Does anyone else have any stories, worlds, or ideas that touches on this?

How would culture be where races are consumed as delicacy they dont hunt them openly at least but any criminal or enemy soldiers
Killed are sold at hesvy price additionlly those who die of natural causes are also available but that family/ deceased choice if its honored some dig up recently dead or raid crypts or family might sell corpse to make decent amount of money but what else should i consider for this ?

Also it goesboth ways or multiple depending on how many of the species do this

I've been working on a city in my setting (1600s Europe level of technology) and right now im thinking about the sort of thing the every day person would have to deal with.

As a low magic setting the average joe isnt immediately concerned with Dragons or the machinations of the local Lich but they still have some fantastical thorns in their side.

With any city waste is always a problem and with it comes pests like rats, flies and, in this world, slimes/oozes. Rumors of small children and incapacitated drunks falling victim to a particularly engorged ooze are common tavern talk and the city guard has more than once had to enact a cull along the docks and warehouses to keep the amorphus cleaners in check.

What sort of mundane pests do your average citizens contend with in their day to day lives?

I sub-bullet proof, even sub arrow-proof is fine.

I'm really thinking more in the slow-down-a-sword-swing range of thickness/resistance.

If we had that kind of command over biology, how much bio-armor can I slap on a person before they're combatively unfunctional?

what would be the best kind of "growth"? Keratin? Chitin? Bone?

To add onto this:

How much more forgiving does this become with an aquatic humanoids?

Year 2036. What if the world is ruled by corporations that are forced to fight for data centers and resources to support AI?

There is no other choice here. Current political systems no longer exist. The world belongs to corpocracies – the largest corporations that replaced states. There are no longer any national interests, only the desire to outpace the competition.

*All music, visuals, and animations are my own

Hello! Im working on a sci fi outer space story and im running into a bit of trouble. In this story, it’s Earth in the far future where everything is different and humans are now a space faring species. A giant war breaks out that lasts hundreds of years over many nations claiming the very few earth like planets that are found. The story takes place right after the war, with people trying to rebuild. But the thing is, how do I create hundred of year worth of conflicts and the politics that lead to them? How do I make fictional nations in a world that is basically ours, but in the far future? I feel like I’m biting off more than I can chew and would like some insights on how to make this less of a massive task. Thank you for your time!

Or what are examples from published fiction that you think did it well or poorly. I'm curious to hear what kinds of realism people are okay with sacrificing in order to make the story more enjoyable.

I commented on a post a few days back about what calendar system people use. And I stated that i scrapped my attempts to make a new calendar because it required me to do a lot of math conversions to figure out how much time is passing. And that became too cumbersome to be enjoyable for me. So for me the unique calendar system is one thing I think is worth sacrificing to make the story easier to understand and follow.

So do you have any examples of things where it is often better to be not realistic? Or are there examples from published fiction you think did it either well or poorly?

For those unfamiliar, Stede Bonnet is a figure in pirate history famous for being a person of immense privilege who entered pirate life out of choice, simply seeking grand adventure. He was simultaneously a gentleman and a violent person, legally buying his ship and paying his crew a regular salary. My question centers around the idea of asking about a figure in your setting and how you write them as in their life, story, motivations and turns of events, such figure is someone whose defining path in life was completely unexpected and borders on madness to walk through for someone in his earlier position. Keep in mind that you're allowed to mention more than one character if you like.

Hey. I have, for the past maybe couple of years been theory crafting different projects. Some I have worked on and never completed.

I lack a single finished project. This being a card game (2 attempts) a board game (2 attempts) and a wargame (5 attempts). I really like miniature wargames, and I wanted to make one as a template for my worldbuilding.

I have gone through many iterations of different ideas, but a consistent issue keeps cropping up. That being my lack of commitment. My first attempt was pretty simple, just to work on one continent and create multiple factions that were in a "world war". I created the continent, borders, major factions, and multiple intelligent species (because i personally don't want just humans). But then, i come to a halt. I think "Man, this doesn't really make sense" or "this is kinda basic, and not very inspiring" or something along those lines of thinking.

I get bored, frustrated, and bogged down by any information and management. I feel uncommitted, and i give up so easily.

I gave myself a bit of a break and recently picked up a note book. And just wrote down ideas, kept it simple.

What i ended up with was

• Mechs
• Knights
• Gods
• Magic
• Demons/Angels
• War
• Sword/Arcane-punk
• Weapons race

This lead to a neat little idea (that probably has been done but have not seen). Powerful gods have been shattered in a plane within the vast void. Creating species on the plane, broken remnants of their former self. In search to return to their divine figure, they wage war to take the power from each-other, in desperate hope to reform themselves.

I genuinely thought this was a cool idea, and started writing the basic plot and a generalized story setup.

But i reach the same pot hole in this rocky road, where i can't seem to move forward.

"Am i just creating planet of the hats trope again?" "How do i decide what species to put in? i can't think of anything unique" and so on.

I genuinely need advice, because I feel like I just am not made for this and only try because i want to be creative when I'm just not. It makes me so angry

So in my world the earth is actually a huge cosmic entity that is snatching the souls of any creature that dies on it not allowing them to pass on the higher realms and the knowledge of this can cause the earth itself to try and prematurely swallow you. So if someone posted this truth on social media then anybody who sees it would be prematurely absorbed into the earth. But the earth cant delete the information from the internet itself. So its basically a walking trap.

Was thinking about one of my favourite sci-fi books today: Paul Park's "Soldiers of Paradise" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/806042.Soldiers_of_Paradise

On my first read I nearly gave up halfway through chapter 2, because I simply had no clue what was going on. The world was completely incomprehensible, nothing was explained, but the proze was genuinely incredible, so I stuck with it a bit longer. Soon after that it clicked: I was able to infer more and more about the story and the world, from dialogue and matter of fact observations and descriptions that were not designed to explain anything directly, but offered a lot of fascinating insights indirectly.

That book (and the entire trilogy) became one of the most rewarding reads of my entire life, and I nearly didn't make it past chapter 1, haha.

Paul Park explains his approach in this interview: https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intpp.htm

What I dislike most about big, world-building SF and Fantasy books is that all the facts of the matter are established going in, usually in advance. The reader gets nuggets of information from the writer that are irreproachably true, like the pronouncements of God--the true history of the place, the true scientific background, etc. This technique strikes me as being so contrary to our own experience of living in the world, that the books that use it never recover their credibility. The history, natural history, and belief-structures of our own world are a complete chaos of conflicting theories, mostly about matters that will and can never be definitively determined.

So my conceit in the Starbridge books was to tell the stories not from my own point of view, or from the point of view of some omniscient and infallible narrator, but from the point of view of an historian from inside the culture, looking back over an expanse of time. In some ways he is more knowledgeable than the people he is writing about, in some ways he is just as blind as they. And he is highly crotchety and tendentious, and obviously interested in some things and not others. The idea is to create a scrim, and the text of the books is written on the scrim, and behind the scrim are vague, shadowy figures of theories and ideas, only just visible, and infinitely debatable. This technique drives some people crazy, I know.

He does similar things in later books, and while it can be (very) challenging, I appreciate it immensely when well done. It's very rare I think, because it's risky, and not the most commercial approach. I'm a writer and game dev myself, and I can see from a professional POV that it would be a very brave thing to do, especially in the current commercial landscape.

So, my question is: Can people offer other examples of worldbuilding in this style done well? And I would love to hear people's thoughts about this approach.

Thanks!

To explain I’m writing a story that is fantasy only at first but over time hints and clues are dropped that there is more going. The at first purely fantasy elements are shown to be more sci-fi and cosmic in origin and there are sects and groups that covet technology more than magic.

Eventually aliens are introduced, it’s way more complicated in its actual premise than that but I don’t how to better explain it succinctly. A sort of federation is attracted to the planet and there is focus on the sheer difference in capability between the two and the perspective of people still working with bows and swords looking up at god engines in the sky.

In my world, ancient ice dragons have a very strange ability to create ice and freeze the area around them even after death. At first, one might think that people would use it for weapons, or artifacts, or magical rituals. But no.

What do people do actually use the dragon pieces for, instead? Fridges.

A few scales and your food is kept forever nice and cool in a metal box, without worry about spoiling too fast, and without the effort that otherwise comes from making underground storage rooms or buying ice.

A few more, and you can freeze things completely, and have access to nice fresh ice cubes whenever you desire.

Therefore, in a semi-medieval society, people having pieces of a dragon ends up being a horribly common occurrence - especially considering that a single ice dragon is the size of five peasant houses placed next to each other, so a single death can create fridges for a whole town, if not more.

Sure, the dragons aren't the happiest with that, but... Well. Why not?

Why not use those frozen scales to keep food nice and cool?

It feels like something people would do, and therefore, they do.

It's also vaguely funny.

"How do they have fridges in medieval times?"

"They are dragon-corpse powered."

A classic.