Mid-summer thoughts on worldbuilding
I’ve always been a homebody, but this year my life almost completely revolves around being home. Like everyone else, I’m making sourdough bread (sourdough blueberry pancakes are particularly popular here). My garden looks fantastic, which will hopefully translate into a great harvest. I've even found time to sew. Making things and other hands-on activities create an ordinariness to my world—especially since the times are extraordinary.
Making things also gives me time to think. Space travel has been on my mind, specifically generation ships. Because one can’t get anywhere quickly in space, an option is for a ship to cruise for generations making it a home where the people living on board live their lives.
How long into such a voyage does life become ordinary?
I suspect travelling to a distant world becomes an abstract backdrop not long after departure. Daily life would become ordinary, little different from mine. The technical side of living on a space ship would need to be dealt with. But after that, growing and making food would form the framework that would define the days of a generation ship citizen.
Generations ships have been used as scifi backdrops many times. My favourite so far is Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson also features a generation ship where the story revolves around the descendants of the ones who made the choice to leave Earth. They struggle to survive on a voyage they didn’t sign on to.
There was a TV show that came out a few years ago (Ascension), where a generation ship ‘departed’ in the 1960. On the ship the people stayed stuck in1960s culture, which struck me as odd. Why wasn’t there new music, new fashions and such? Our culture doesn't stay the same over time, so why didn't theirs morph into some different?
I'm working of a story that will contain generations ships after they arrive at a far off part of the universe, which is why I've been thinking about what their society might be like. No doubt a ship-based society would develop that would be unique. Would there be feasts to celebrate the day they left Earth? What stories would they tell their children?
Note -- the picture is a close-up of a poppy seed pod out of my garden, not some alien plant.