I’m listening to Episode 156 of The Tome Podcast, a discussion of World Building with Keith Baker, creator of Eberron. Excellent discussion – check it out.
Listening to: The Tome – Worldbuilding with Keith Baker
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Category Archives: Worldbuilders
March, 2172 AD
It’s March, 2172 AD, twenty one years after the discovery of Hyperspace and seven years after Consolidated Aerospace’s first successful test of a prototype jump drive.
It is a historic day: Three new spaceships orbit Mars just a few kilometers from the orbital shipyard. They are not pretty, but they represent mankind’s crowning achievement, the most advanced vessels ever built – and will keep that title for at least two years. They are jump-capable autonomous drones, each equipped and programmed to travel to one of the three systems within 7.7 light-years of Earth, to map them, to gather data on any planetary bodies found, and then to automatically return to the Sol system.
They are our first vanguard, our robotic messengers, and mankind is on the verge of becoming an interstellar civilization.
Their trips will take the better part of a year to complete, but without the jump drive such voyages would be entirely unfeasible:
- Probe 1 – nickname “Hope”: Destination Proxima Centauri, Scheduled return January 2173
- Probe 2 – nickname “Dream”: Destination Alpha Centauri, Scheduled return February 2173
- Probe 3 – nickname “Vision”: Destination Barnard’s Star, Scheduled return June 2173
All of mankind is eagerly awaiting their return; data these probes gather will determine not only what system the Magellan will explore in further detail when she is completed in ’74, but also very likely where mankind establishes its first outpost outside the solar system.
The probes are towed out of orbit by tugboat one after the other, to conserve their precious fuel. Once each tugboats has placed its payload at a safe distance and has itself retreated, the probe is given a remote command. The on-board simulated intelligence takes control of the vessel, radios one final status report back to the command and control station in Mars orbit, and then enters Hyperspace.
All three departures are picture-perfect to the extent an entry into hyperspace can ever be interesting to watch. What will the probes find in the three systems?
Time will tell.
Star Map – Style Test 3
I experimented a bit with GIMP to get a nice starfield for a backdrop. This is the result…
Star Map - Style Test
Edit: Different line style:
Star Map: Now with red lines
Edit 2:
With different blue lines:
Star Map: Better Blues
What do you think?
Planetary System Creation – WIP 1
I spent a lot of time today to put my planetary system generation rules through a first test. My rules set isn’t very original, it’s basically a compilation of other systems. Yeah – I wish I could create my very own, but I am simply no astrophysicist and I do not have the time to read a dozen books and interview experts.
I don’t need something hyper-realistic anyway, with any luck my solar systems will be superseded by real science anyway when we find out the composition of nearby star systems. I need something that is plausible – “playable realism”, so to speak.
My test case was Alpha Centauri. At first, I did a lot by hand, but then I decided that I might as well build a nice spreadsheet and use only that – since I will eventually have to design hundreds of solar systems I really do not want to do any manual calculations and ideally no manual table lookups at all.
Boy, is creating formulas in OpenOffice a hassle – you have to enter it all on one line!
But it was worth it. My current spreadsheet takes some basic values about the star, and a lot of dice-rolling (I wanted this manual, even if OpenOffice can do random values – I didn’t check for that – because this way I can fudge values when necessary). It produces orbits, world types, diameters, atmosphere and world types, and a few other derived values. It’s not quite complete but it’s an awesome start!
I didn’t do Alpha Centauri B yet – nor Proxima, for that matter – but Alpha Centauri A will have two habitable worlds; one true Garden world and one Glacier world on the outer edge of the Habitable Zone.
And yes, I fudged the results. When I read up on what we know about the real Alpha Centauri system, I found out that we failed to detect any gas giant worlds there.
So this will be my method when I start working on my solar systems – fudge results so I match roughly what we know to be true for real, and make sure the rest works for the fictional universe I am setting up.
Star Map – Style Test 2
I’ve added more stars so we can get a better impression of what it looks like; the jump routes are now blue and the labels have a different font. Oh, and the star icons have been improved. I think I like this.
Star Map - Style Test
Edit: I added one missing connection, and the 36 Ophiuchi trinary system.
Star Map – Style Test 1
Here’s my first attempt at an actual style for the star map. I think it’s a good start, but I am not yet happy with it, of course.
Star Map - Style Test 1
The stars need to be more glowy, and I think I want some kind of backdrop as well… and the jumproutes, well, they are a bit “heavy”.
Star Map – WIP 9
Thanks to a guy from the Cartographer’s Guild I found a missing link, and Arcturus/Eta Bootis/Beta Canum Berenices are now connected to the main cluster. Besides that, as you can see the changes are fairly minor:
Star Map - WIP 9
The map now contains about 810 stars in roughly 540 systems. That means I am about a third through the list I have. I really oughtto have automated map generation. Anyway, no matter – I’ve been at this for only six weeks, so I have been able to work on this much, much quicker than I had feared.
Star Map - WIP 9
Back to work…
Jump Route – Cover Image Doodle
Just experimenting.
Jump Route: Cover Design
“Jump Route” is one title I am considering for the setting currently known as Voyagers, consider it a working title.
The Milky Way Galaxy was made by Nick Risinger, based on NASA images, and is in the Public Domain.
Star Map – WIP 8
I’ve slowed down due to other commitments, but thanks to the guys on the Cartographers’ Guild I was able to identify a link I forgot in the “relational” map – that long arm of stars including Beta Canum Venaticorum (an important system for a 2300AD fan) was actually connected to the main cluster all along.
Star Chart WIP 8
Looks much better already. Not all of those smaller “clusters” are connected, of course. The map using “real” positioning is becoming almost impossible to read, by the way.
Star Chart WIP 8
For the final map, I will almost certainly use the “relational” map – it is just so much more useful for practical navigation of human space…
My Home as a Subway Map
Clercon posted his home as a subway map on the Cartographers’ Guild Forums, and I figured it’s a fun exercise:
Subway Map v1
In the first version, I based my routes mostly on geography. In version 2, I modeled them much more on “traffic” flow.
Subway Map v2
I also changed some station names.
The “Western Station” – my front door – should be the main station if this was a city. “Fire Escape” – on the balcony – would be the airport.