12 KiB
[WIP] The Sphere (Worldbuilding)
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Author: u/None *
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Score: 8
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Created: 2016-03-22T00:56:19
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+3] (7 minutes later)
We had exhausted the possibility of encountering any uncontacted civilization on this Earth. Alas, there's nothing more exotic than the oriental. No lost civilization or big grand mysteries.
But what if we made Earth bigger? Ginormously big that uncontacted civilization became possible!
Big enough for parallel histories to play side-by-side until contact in the 21st century or later.
That's the idea behind this world.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (48 minutes later)
Kiba, I didn't know you posted here.
Reminds me of The City from Blame! (an important work of the cyberpunk genre) except less obviously malicious. It's got Builder and Safeguard analogues, Megastructure as well.
I always did love Blame!.
u/None [+1] (56 minutes later)
That is my primary inspiration. I am a fan of Nihei's work, even the shonen bastard child called Knights of Sidonia. I never seen anything like it in any other work.
And I am pretty sure that my setting is pretty unique as well.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (an hour later)
Blame! will always hold a special place in my heart. This is definitely a distinct setting despite the similarities.
You'll want to make it so that the VI does something about people who hit the singularity or similar, or else the whole thing will end up overrun with von-neuman machines.
u/None [+1] (2 hours later)
Sufficiently developed civilization will be contacted by the Sphere with an ultimatum about von-neuman or AGI, or some variation thereof, including the possibility of extermination and extinction.
This is not included in the report because of the rather limited perspective of the explorers.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (2 hours later)
That'd work.
u/Anakiri [+3] (9 hours later)
I think the framing device is not as transparent as you intended it to be.
Dyson spheres are not very massive for their size, because they're mostly made of empty space. Even dissassembling the star for matter (repeating typo: "matters"; matter is uncountable, like water) only makes it very slightly more thick. Why do the narrators think it is dense? What, is it solid? I don't know. Why don't they know the size of a black hole as massive as their lower bound for the anomalosphere? (Typo: "assuming that the object is made of only ordinary sphere")
How much of the ΑΔ09γ habitat is habitable? "There are places" where it is habitable implies that there are places where it s not, so it's confusing when you then say "all of the sphere" is habitable. I'm also still confused by the mass thing from earlier,so I don't know if you mean the surface or the volume.
(Typo: "transportations"; transportation is also uncountable.)
Cubes: Woah, woah, slow down! Warp-trains get three sentences of reasoning and explanation, but reality bending devices only get "they're square"? What exactly does "reality manipulation" mean? Force walls? Matter creation? FTL? Non-euclidean geometry? Time travel? Rewriting the laws of physics so that quarks no longer bond? Are there different cubes for different tasks, or can any cube do anything? Are they safe to be around, or are they sealed behind sheiding to power things from afar? Do they affect the area around them, or can they select a target? If it's an area effect, can they manipulate reality so that the rest of the world sees the cube at the position of the target? How do our narrators even know what they are, if they don't know what they do? Are they just trusting the Assisstant?
Who cares who built the extrasphere and why? Okay, anthropologists and stuff, I guess. Nerds. No, the important question is: How can I build my own? The Assissistant apparently isn't too shy about explaining Cubes and such, and those will revolutionize multiversal society! Evidently, it also explained how to turn a Dyson sphere into a Bessler sphere like this one. We're gonna be rich!
I have no idea how Matryoshka Super-Earth 10374 is related to the larger exotic megastructure. Is it embedded in the shell in a protected cavity? Is it floating freely in the empty spact where the star was? What does the "ceiling" look like from the outside, as our narrators would see it? Does the planet have contact with the larger structure, or is the ceiling impenetrable to them?
(Typo: "hallow")
The planet takes up the largest part of your post, so I assume that's the setting that you're actually interested in, right? And the ceiling is impenetrable, and the humans are barely industrialized? If that's true, is there a point to the rest of this "sphere" stuff at all? Why don't you just say, "There's an Earth that's bigger than Jupiter. It has layers. No space travel. It works because magic."?
u/None [+1] (11 hours later)
Thanks for the feedback. Really helpful. Will incorporate your response next time. Yeah, it's a WIP. Some things are not really well explained.
Dyson spheres are not very massive for their size, because they're mostly made of empty space. Even dissassembling the star for matter (repeating typo: "matters"; matter is uncountable, like water) only makes it very slightly more thick. Why do the narrators think it is dense? What, is it solid? I don't know. Why don't they know the size of a black hole as massive as their lower bound for the anomalosphere? (Typo: "assuming that the object is made of only ordinary sphere")
Started out as a dyson sphere, but then eventually the star was disassembled for construction materials. So it's no longer a dyson sphere as it was powered by an exotic energy source not found anywhere else in the multiverse.
It's also dense because there is no free floating spaces within the sphere. There's always structures and machinery and worlds of some kind. You can say it's solid.
How much of the ΑΔ09γ habitat is habitable? "There are places" where it is habitable implies that there are places where it s not, so it's confusing when you then say "all of the sphere" is habitable. I'm also still confused by the mass thing from earlier,so I don't know if you mean the surface or the volume.
Ah, I only talked about the mass of the object and what it was composed of. I did not mention size. Size of the sphere would be extending all the way to the oort cloud.
When I said all the sphere is habitable, I meant that the network of habitable areas extend across the entire sphere. I will fix that unclear wording.
Who cares who built the extrasphere and why? Okay, anthropologists and stuff, I guess. Nerds. No, the important question is: How can I build my own? The Assissistant apparently isn't too shy about explaining Cubes and such, and those will revolutionize multiversal society! Evidently, it also explained how to turn a Dyson sphere into a Bessler sphere like this one. We're gonna be rich!
Good question. They are scientists and explorers, so they are interested in those kind of questions as well as the technological treasure contained within. However, while the assistant explained various operations of the Sphere, it did not explain how technologies work, except in the most general form. Everything else is inferred from research.
Cubes: Woah, woah, slow down! Warp-trains get three sentences of reasoning and explanation, but reality bending devices only get "they're square"? What exactly does "reality manipulation" mean? Force walls? Matter creation? FTL? Non-euclidean geometry? Time travel? Rewriting the laws of physics so that quarks no longer bond? Are there different cubes for different tasks, or can any cube do anything? Are they safe to be around, or are they sealed behind sheiding to power things from afar? Do they affect the area around them, or can they select a target? If it's an area effect, can they manipulate reality so that the rest of the world sees the cube at the position of the target? How do our narrators even know what they are, if they don't know what they do? Are they just trusting the Assisstant?
Reality manipulation referred to the capability of manipulating and editing the underlying mathematical and the physical property of the universe. Essentially, this is the by-word for plainly impossible. The only exception is that you cannot edit non-sense into the universe.
This is a theoretical capability explained of by the explorers, so they were able to ascertain what the cube was doing.
Cubes are unexplained because that was what I am working on when 'time' ran out. I scheduled a certain amount of time to work on this project each day.
There are various kind cubes responsible for various type of effects on the Sphere and the objects around them. They are not however, purposefully hidden. It may be dangerous to be around them depending on the effects of the field, but the cubes themselves are perfectly safe. Due to the limitation of technology, design, manufacturing, the cubes cannot do all the things all the time, and certain interactions of effect fields between cubes can result in disastrous consequence on the sphere itself. They are programmed and assigned symbols drawn on the cube which aid observers to interpret and document those cubes.
For example, a cube have an area effect field 3km in diameter and increase the air pressure twice. If it's visible, then the observer will be able to see the notations on the cube that tells them exactly that.
As for knowledge, part of it is given to the explorers by the assistant. Otherwise, they left to their own device to study the structure.
I have no idea how Matryoshka Super-Earth 10374 is related to the larger exotic megastructure. Is it embedded in the shell in a protected cavity? Is it floating freely in the empty spact where the star was? What does the "ceiling" look like from the outside, as our narrators would see it? Does the planet have contact with the larger structure, or is the ceiling impenetrable to them?
Like everything else, it's connected to the sphere, as there is no empty space to float around or orbit.
The narrator would be able to 'see' it, but only by walking around on the surface of the world's ceiling.
The planet have a method of contact with the larger structure via the translight rail system, but that is unreachable to the humans on the surface.
The planet takes up the largest part of your post, so I assume that's the setting that you're actually interested in, right? And the ceiling is impenetrable, and the humans are barely industrialized? If that's true, is there a point to the rest of this "sphere" stuff at all? Why don't you just say, "There's an Earth that's bigger than Jupiter. It has layers. No space travel. It works because magic."?
Because I want it to be part of a meta setting, hence the Sphere.
Feel free to ask more questions. It's more fodder for expanding the worldbuilding and the setting.
u/None [+1] (4 days later)
I finished incorporating your feedback as far as I can tell.
All that is left is to proofread it triple-check.
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (3 hours later)
What exactly do you want us to take a look at? I'm not sure that this has even reached "bare bones" status; about the only thing we know about the inhabitants is that a very small number of them are human, and these humans have industrialized.
u/None [+1] (6 hours later)
Worldbuilding currently about the big picture overview at the moment.
Zoomed in details will come later.