Class 1: Introduction, Themes and Images

[Jubal]

Yeah, it's hard to break out of thinking about what's already been done - and that's partly what I want to help people do over the course of this, well, course.

If anyone's still struggling a little further in I do have a massive pile of my own stubs of unwritten ideas which anyone can nick.

[comrade_general]

I thought of something today at work, well, it's something I had kinda thought about before, but...

The setting is in our future, but not too far, like the 22nd century. The planet has been devastated by a global war, the "Terran War", but all that is remembered about the conflict is that it was West vs. East. The thing about that though is that the magnetic poles had already flipped themselves back in 2012, so it's your guess as to the combatants. The only thing known for sure is that our current inhabited world was irradiated, the ice caps melted, and the only livable area left was Antarctica. The survivors eventually gathered there and started a new culture. What's interesting is that after the ice covering on Antarctica had melted, it revealed the remnants of an advanced race that had lived there millions of years ago. They had some pretty advanced technology, some of which remains, but they were definitely not human. Oh and by this time there is a colony on Mars that could house about 20,000 people, but they haven't been heard from since the war.

[Silver Wolf]

portugal bro, when you started it sound like most of the stuff you see in movies, then it went in Bethesda's Fallout direction and turned into something original right after Antarctica. The alien base reminds me a bit of Alien vs. Predator, but not much (the design and purpose of those buildings might be totally different). Base on Mars is a bit stereotypical, but it is likely that it will be the first colonized planet in real life too. Sudden disappearance adds a bit of mystery and randomness. And I like that. A lot.

Excellent job. Expand the idea! Now!

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Now about my idea.
I think that I'll stop working on Jygagalag's realm. The reason for this is because Bethesda left the story pretty much unfinished. And if you're a hardcore TES fan you might notice that. To cut the long story full of unexplainable mysteries short...

My ranting. Fans only. Otherwise you'll be confused.

It's is unknown if Jyggalag really is a separate prince, or is her rally the other aspect of mad Sheogorath who once in an era goes over the top crazy (even for a god of Madness) and completely rips apart his own realm only to rebuild it again as Sheogorath. As the hero who now replaces Sheogorath as his mortal aspect "grows to his station" he might just be restarting the same cycle which he broke.

Super hardcore nightmare fan explanation. (Not suitable for mortals)

www.imperial-library.info/content/arden-sul-1

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I'll start a new world.
No humans in it. Just amphibian beings living in water like fluid. Weird stuff. And living planets more similar to cells.
How does that sound?

Or a desert world inhabited by humanoids and monsters in which time occasionally doesn't move in linear way? The only things that keeps time and space continuous is a huge underground construct supported by magic. And there are some who are unaffected by it? Sensing those broken energies and rifts in the time-space continuum and thus being able to briefly control them, skipping short time periods in future and past, with different scenarios each time.

[comrade_general]

alien base

I never said they were alien.

[Jubal]

Both ideas sound cool, good to have some sci-fi in there! 

[Phoenixguard09]

CG's sounds good. I'm quite interested in finding out more.

To Silver, I think I like the first one better. Living planets sounds incredibly cool.

[Cuddly Khan]

Living planets. Now that gives me an idea.

[Jubal]

I've started work on the cartography module, which will be a pretty big one.

[Cuddly Khan]

Am I allowed to do another one?

[Jubal]

Anotherwhat?

[Cuddly Khan]

Theme or whatever you call it.

[Jubal]

Sure, spew out as many ideas as you like. You'll have to pick & submit one for your final project, but for now feel free to chuck out as many ideas as you can think of, get people to comment and get as much group creativity going as possible. 

[Cuddly Khan]

OK, my idea is a Sci-Fi world in which 3 races are known. It's the world of Sins of a Solar Empire, if you have played that game you'll know what I mean. Even though it is a space based game there will be a lot of planetary settings. The lore is here. It will be set in the 20 years ago, at the beginning of the war. The three races are the TEC, which stands for Trader Emergency Coalition, the Vasari, a ruthless race seeking to be galactic conqueror, and the Advent, a race coming back for revenge against the TEC for exiling them many years ago. These three races are caught in a three way war, a struggle for power.

[Pentagathus]

I'm not really sure what I'm envisioning but I think the major themes would be biology, magic and history/politics with the three being intertwined (e.g how would magic effect the number and nature of living things and how would the magic and biology effect the politics, who's really pulling the strings) with the big picture being very much murky with small revelations here and there.
So far I've been very interested in the idea of a spirit world such as depicted in shamanic myths/religion (thinking Uralic shamanism here) with the spirit world sitting above/overlapping the physical world so that it's easier for things to pass from the spirit world than vice versa. When I say spirit and physical world I suppose that would be depending on which side of the fence you're on, with the "physical world" being the home of humanity/the peoples who's eyes you'll see the story from. Both worlds will have the same laws of physics I think (although not necessarily the same as our world) with magic being born from the interaction of these worlds. In some sense I'm thinking that a magic practitioners sense of power would be measured in how far they can go into the other world, with highly potent sorcerers being able to physically cross the void and return. I like the idea of the spirit world being seen as foggy to magic users as a sort of metaphor for the  generally ignorance in how the worlds work.