Science for story fodder
Lately my thoughts have been wandering (well, that’s not entirely true as my thoughts always wander). Right now, I’m collecting world building ideas for a new science fiction series to delve into once all the Settler Chronicles books are out (in my current series there’ll be 4 books, a novella and a short story, hopefully all will be out this year). Several notebooks are already filled with all sorts of ideas--ideas that I may or may not end up using, but are fun to collect.
My next series will be set in another galaxy with a completely different premise a thousand years or so in the future (of course, I reserve the right to change my mind at any time). Humanity will have spread to multiple different worlds and space stations. Spaceships of different types will be plentiful ranging from ratty old transport ships to luxury liners to fast military craft. Some worlds will be terraformed, some terraforming will have failed and some people will have been genetically modified to be better adapted to their world.
For better or worse, people will, of course, still be people.
This shiny new story idea gives me the freedom to make all sorts of fun stuff up, or rather, loosely base these settings on science. I want this ‘world’ to fit in with the physics of our universe while seeming different. Which means I’ve been reading up on exoplanets (two different books on this are sitting on my shelf, and I’ve read part of each one), biohacking (we already do this check out this example on hacking insulin pumps), transhumanism and how exactly would one build a space elevator.
It’s all very exciting in the beginning stages of a new project, everything seems so shiny. The gathering of ideas phase of world building is always so much fun--and I get to learn new things. As always, I plan on sharing the process here.
The image above is from my trip to Paris last year from a travelling exhibit on display in the Musee d'Orsay. It's Under the Stars by Kristjan Raud (1865-1909). This is what the description said (yep I photographed the caption too):
This drawing forms part of the Man and the Night cycle in which Raud explores the theme of man and the macrocosim in three small-format compositions executed in a pared-down style. As is often the case with Raud, the figure in Under the Stars is alone in the face of the immensity of the universe.