Taasao - Yiuel's Conworld

[Yiuel]

So, there you go. I have decided to describe my conworld, Taasao.

My conworld Taasao places itself in a category not unlike that of Star Wars, combining elements of fantasy and sci-fi. However, while Star Wars is more about fantasy than sci-fi, Taasao is more about sci-fi than fantasy. There is some concern for wonder and some fantasy tropes, but it amounts more to speculative fiction than fantasy. An important detail is a huge focus on social sciences; I will explore relations between individuals, and their possible consequences. It's sci-fi, but social-sci-fi.

This post will serve as a general introduction, and as a list of topics convered.

I will give an update at least once per week, on Saturdays. Due to time zones, expect them to be online on Sundays if you are out of luck. Each update will include one post regarding the questions asked in this thread regarding topics already discussed (you can ask questions about any topic discussed, so post necromancy is allowed), and one post regarding a specific subject, which will be duly added to the list of subjects below.

In the future, if this conworld shows any promise, I am planning to setup a full wiki dedicated to it.

Topics

0E. Preface : The Adopted Pseudo-Neutral Point of View
0E4 Note on Names (new)

[Yiuel]

The first subject to be discussed is the Point of View adopted in this whole treatment; it has to be explained and, I hope, well justified externally.

The Adopted Point of View

I will not be using an omniscient point of view; instead, I will be using an point of view internal to the conworld.

There are two reasons for this. The first reason is actually the problem of being a human : I do not know everything myself about how my own world works, so I certainly could not know everything that is about my conworld which I want to be as consistent as possible. This is especially relevant with a conworld like mine, whose written history, as described here, is over 50,000 years old, which is about ten times longer than human written history. The second reason is purely artistic license : I plan quite a few stories, and some details are better left undescribed or underdescribed or not entirely understood. Other details may be plot points.

But whose point of view did I choose? I have chosen the most advanced civilization still extant after the 50k years. I call them the Ancients, a translation of their own name for themselves, even though they are fully aware they are not exactly the most ancient group of Taasao.

Their point of view offers, however, many advantages. The biggest one is arguably their reliance on science; they don't like rumors or telltales, so their data is usually the most reliable. While not the oldest civilization, they are the oldest extant one with continuous written sources. They also are the only civilization that has access to the first part of those 50k years, albeit with a few caveats. Finally, their focus on endonyms is invaluable on names; while they colloquially use nativized names when needed during discourse, research papers and other sources use endonyms, including endoscripts. This is not, however, necessarily true of the earlier periods, where their sources probably include more exonyms than endonyms, however, unless specified otherwise, beyond a certain point in time, one should assume endonyms for all anthropological descriptions beyond a certain point.

I will offer treatment about the Ancients in another post.

Pseudo-Neutral

Using this does not lead to an entirely neutral point of view. They do have biases, hence the pseudo-neutral term, obviously, after all. However, they are not exactly proeminent and, even if they appear, the Ancients most probably have less bias in their view than any other group that will eventually be described in this thread. But this may only be my own bias for science and reliable facts and information.

Also, everything they ignore, I will feign ignorance and, therefore, you too will ignore. Some things that I ignore, however, are things I do not know myself, including things I couldn't physically understand yet but are well understood by my point of view. This may lead to occasional retcons and other reevaluations, when my own knowledge is updated. This is the curse of choosing a people that are explicitly more advanced than my own by a large stretch.

To compare, you can take Tolkien, who uses his Elves has his main point of view, but Hobbits in LotR. In style, however, one should look at Mark Rosenfelder and his Almea, where he takes the point of view of highly educated Verdurian, from a group of people that are explicitly less advanced than us, but lagging only about two centuries.

Other point of views

Other point of views exist; however, I will not be using them unless quote specific characters and personalities. Ethnographies might address the topic as well.

[gestaltist]

Subscribing.

I would like to know if it’s more of an SF world or a fantasy world. You don’t mention it in the OP.

[Yiuel]

Subscribing.

I would like to know if it’s more of an SF world or a fantasy world. You don’t mention it in the OP.

I had written it in the first version of my post, but the whole thing got deleted and I had to rewrite it. And then, as you can see, it did not appear. I'll add a mention in my initial post, thank you.

In many ways, I'd that it is both : the purpose of SF is to look at where science could go, and its effects. Fantasy, as explained, is more of a spiritual journey, exploring, well fantasies.

It's a huge giveaway, but there is magic. The Ancients are fully aware of its existence. A large part of the history is dedicated to the consequences of having something like magic around. It is not, however, spiritual, and it has its limits. So, in this way, there is fantasy.

On the other hand, I would say that, while there is some fantasy and exploration of metaphysics and critic thereof, it is mostly sci-fi. Considering the Ancients, some classic sci-fi is part of the show, but my focus will be having fun with social sciences. Exploring how individuals could indeed relate, and the social consequences of these changes.

So, overall, Sci-fi, with a sprinkle of Fantasy with it to add some weirder drama.

[gestaltist]

Sounds very intriguing. I will eagerly await another update.

[kanejam]

Sounds very intriguing. I will eagerly await another update.

Count me in!

[zyma]

I'll be following as well. I'm particularly intrigued by the novel (as far as I know) concept of "social-sci-fi".

[elemtilas]

I will not be using an omniscient point of view; instead, I will be using an point of view internal to the conworld.

There are two reasons for this. The first reason is actually the problem of being a human : I do not know everything myself about how my own world works, so I certainly could not know everything that is about my conworld which I want to be as consistent as possible. This is especially relevant with a conworld like mine, whose written history, as described here, is over 50,000 years old, which is about ten times longer than human written history. The second reason is purely artistic license : I plan quite a few stories, and some details are better left undescribed or underdescribed or not entirely understood. Other details may be plot points.

A common technique, but I think a very good one. It draws us outsiders in and makes us more comfortable with a narrator that doesn't know everything there is to know! On the other hand, don't let your chosen perspective keep you from writing and maintaining private notes of an omniscient nature. There may well be things that the natives won't be aware of that you as creator and story-teller ought to know; and you'll want to keep all that straight.

I certainly look forward to seeing more!

[Yiuel]

I'm particularly intrigued by the novel (as far as I know) concept of "social-sci-fi".

Well, it's not exactly new; Star Trek's economy without scarcity does some little exploration of how humans could become if scarcity was cut off the equation. However, as an inspiration, I must say that Mark Rosenfelder's concept of socionomics has been a push into the same direction. But overall, it's mostly because I find societies a lot more diverse and interesting than differences in the physics of our Universe. Exploring how individuals may interact elsewhere also raises many questions, some that could actually be interesting.

A big surprise came to me just a few days ago, when I read about recent research on the dinosaurs. While hearing, as a sense, has been present quite some time, auditory communication appears to have been absent from most non-avian dinosaurs, excluding (possibly) some groups of hadrosaurs. That is, verbal communication would not be able to evolve in these species. While I won't be tackling this issue (I plan to have all my species verbal), it can be interesting to see how this could affect societies.

This still sits in biology, which rests between natural and social sciences, but I plan to look at social structures, social constructs, how people might actually divide themselves and interact. I have already worked on a culture where distinct worker groups evolve distinct dialects because of how much distant they stay from each other. Another one explores racism, but with the added detail that we are dealing with groups that are as different as lions and tigers (biologically quite different, but still breadable), and how the two different groups will react.

Spoiler:

One group will be highly racist, wishing for total segregation; the other one couldn't care less, especially since interbreeding is possible, and they have seen far more different.

The treatable subjects are endless, as I have psychology, religion, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, economics to work with. The sky's the limit.

A common technique, but I think a very good one. It draws us outsiders in and makes us more comfortable with a narrator that doesn't know everything there is to know! On the other hand, don't let your chosen perspective keep you from writing and maintaining private notes of an omniscient nature. There may well be things that the natives won't be aware of that you as creator and story-teller ought to know; and you'll want to keep all that straight.

I certainly look forward to seeing more!

I intend to make the narrator impersonal; the result will therefore be encyclopedic, with the result that whatever will be written will be written using the most knowledgeable sources and information available to my point-of-view society as a whole. So there will not be a single person to identify to.

And yes, I will be keeping such private notes; a few fundamental points will be hidden, and I know them. They simply won't appear in this thread :)

[gestaltist]

A big surprise came to me just a few days ago, when I read about recent research on the dinosaurs. While hearing, as a sense, has been present quite some time, auditory communication appears to have been absent from most non-avian dinosaurs, excluding (possibly) some groups of hadrosaurs. That is, verbal communication would not be able to evolve in these species. While I won't be tackling this issue (I plan to have all my species verbal), it can be interesting to see how this could affect societies.

I tackle this problem to some extent in the World of the Twin Suns. The auropaths (sentient therapsids) don’t have the speech apparatus necessary to produce speech. They have a very different means of communication.

Until now, I have imagined them as having „normal“ hearing and being able to learn to understand human speech. Now I want to rethink that. Maybe having them be deaf would be even more interesting? It would definitely make the chasm between them and the humans even bigger.

But I don’t want to hijack your thread. :)

[cntrational]

What is the tech level and hardness of the setting, excluding the magic bits?

[Yiuel]

What is the tech level and hardness of the setting, excluding the magic bits?

Actually, you need to include the magic bits to actually understand the tech level.

As the history spans over 50 millenia, one should not expect things to be static during its history.

However, the Ancients have crossed our current level (more or less) well over 20 millenia ago; they are therefore a lot more advanced. I am still pondering, however, if they have found something to cross the lightspeed barrier or not. They certainly engaged in some interstellar travel (so interplanetary is already done, locally), but I would expect some time to pass before they do find some way to actually be able to cross beyond speedlight if they ever do.

However, the Ancients, for reasons I'll explain later, do not give us the whole picture. For one, the first 20 millenia do not include the Ancients, as they did not exist, and during this former pre-Ancient period, magic overran technology at a fairly early point in history, meaning the technology level might not be much more different than Iron Age technology. However, with magic, while not exactly as reliable as D&D yet not exactly unreliable either, especially for item creation, the final stages would look like a soft sci-fi (with some marvels yet to be achieved by the Ancients), without interplanetary technology. (The italic part is quite a plot point which will kick on with my first treatment.)

Also, technology collapsed at least three times, none of them from environmental crisis (so perish the thought, though I may add a fourth one just for that...), resetting everything to Stone Age for everyone twice, while the third one (between the other two) is not exactly a collapse but a migration, which left Stone Age cultures alone to recolonize the world...

[gestaltist]

Can’t wait to learn more about your world. It has a good mix of familiar and novel. :)

[Khemehekis]

Do the Ancients have time travel?

[Yiuel]

Note on Names

Before my first installment, I want to give a small precision regarding the many names that will appear.

There will be four types of names :

1. Omniscient names
2. Translated names
3. Exonyms
4. Endonyms

The third and fourth categories are obvious; they refer to actual names used within the setting. Most names, due to Ancient academics, will be Endonyms (with necessary adaptations when speaking about them in English). Ancients, in their anthropological (for lack of a better word) research activities, have taken pride in using Endonyms as much as possible, when applicable as proper names. In their papers, they go as far as using the native scripts if there is any, with a gloss for pronunciation. I will not be going that far, and some sounds are not pronounceable by human mouths so difficult to render with human speech, but I will provide transliteration of all Endonyms provided.

Exonyms for a distinct category; limited to the first third of the recorded history, they are used by Ancients when there is no Endonym available. Ancient scientific litterature has agreed that if a certain type of name appears consistently regarding some indidivual or some group accross cultural spheres, the most consistent form is chosen, giving us a small subcategory of Pseudoendonyms.

In this thread, all names should be thought of Endonym unless specified otherwise; all Exonyms are noted as such by an asterisk in this thread.

Translated names form another part of the names used here. The most proeminent example, as of this post, is the name for the Ancients themselves. Such names are somewhat common among the Ancients; they take high pride in having translatable names as, despite their relatively cultural unity, they do not form a single individual culture, more of an interconnected civilization. This is quite similar to Europe or India; there is an Indian and European identity, but they do not share a common language. So, where naming themselves, Ancients have come up with the idea of translatable names, where the names are explicitly common nouns to be translated. To mark them, I will use their English equivalents as appropriate, marked with an otherwise unusual capital letter. Thus, the Ancients.

Finally, there are six specific names that are totally disconnected from an internal source. I call them ob]Omniscient names[/b]. The Ancients usually have their own translatable names, as these six names refer to specific locations that cross cultural boundaries. However, refering to them with their translatable name would be unwieldy. These specific names I have come up with during my conworlding process, remnants of language creation.

Here are the omniscient names, with their translatable name equivalents.

Taasao = Our Large Planet
Jaatao = Our Home Planet
Lanh = Our Large Moon
Nhal = Our Small Moon
Kin = Our Star
Tao = Our Large Planet's First Continent

The Ancients, with their annoying method, usually come up with rather bland, unweildy names when it comes to geographical locations that are not anthropological notions. The name for Tao is quite representative; they will define a category, and they will number by size, from the largest to the smallest. Continents are defined by being a continuous land surrounded by water, so the smallest islands are part of this naming-numbering scheme. Mountain, hills and proeminent points are similarly described. Seas are saltwater bassins, and defined by the volume of water; lakes will only go by surface size. It's efficient, but it is indeed quite boring. But Ancients turn around this concept by using the endonyms of locations as defined culturally when discussing ethnographical elements.

To give an example of what a description of Earth would be :

Earth has many continents.
- The First, and overwhelmingly largest with 84 million sq. km;
- The Second, with a little over 42 million sq. km;
- The Third, with 14 million sq. km;
- The Fourth, with 7 million sq. km;
- The Fifth, with 2 million sq. km;
An many more with less than a million sq. km.

Cristoforo Colombo discovered by fortuitous accident the first land of what Europeans would call the Americas, Guanahani, in the morning of October 12 1492.

All the continents are given numeric names for Eufrasia, America, Antarctica, Australia, and Greenland. Notice that they stopped counting after Greenland, because they're simply describing continents, not continental plates. In that regard, they'd view current Earth as almost into a supercontinent phase, as only a few landmasses are not part of the common landmass connected through Beringia.

History, however, gives us Columbus's Italian name, but also the native name for the island he landed on. The date is European, as the focus is on the European perspective (to the Natives, America was discovered millenia ago, and an account would address this). Guanahani would be given a number, which would be its rank among lands (continents), but I don't have the patience to look for the rank of Guanahani right now.

So be aware that the posts on geography and astrography may be very tedious.

[Yiuel]

Do the Ancients have time travel?

I'll be straightforward : Unless the Universe hates us all and FTL travel does really imply time travel, no, they don't.

[cntrational]

If your FTL involves actually going faster than light, then yes, it involves time travel.

If your FTL involves bending space, with no actual movement, like an Alcubierre drive, which involves causing your spaceship to move by bending the space in front of you while expanding the space behind you, then time travel is avoided.

Finally, wormholes and wormhole-likes can allow you to FTL without time travel. But, if you can move the wormhole at relativistic speeds, which causes you to experience time slower, it will "desync" and become a portal to the past. This effect actually exists at any speed, but its only at a significant fraction of light speed does it become noticeable.

[Yiuel]

If your FTL involves actually going faster than light, then yes, it involves time travel.

If your FTL involves bending space, with no actual movement, like an Alcubierre drive, which involves causing your spaceship to move by bending the space in front of you while expanding the space behind you, then time travel is avoided.

Finally, wormholes and wormhole-likes can allow you to FTL without time travel. But, if you can move the wormhole at relativistic speeds, which causes you to experience time slower, it will "desync" and become a portal to the past. This effect actually exists at any speed, but its only at a significant fraction of light speed does it become noticeable.

I am aware about your first point; the point is I want a faster-than-light travel that does not go actually faster than light in the relativity sense, so I am more into space bending than any other form. That is, if they do have it. For the moment, let us keep it as I do not know.

I have otherwise taken the opposite few for a thought experiment of mine; instead of going faster, I imagined a people who engineered themselves to live millions of years so that taking a few decades to travel to other stars is relatively short. :P

[elemtilas]

I have otherwise taken the opposite few for a thought experiment of mine; instead of going faster, I imagined a people who engineered themselves to live millions of years so that taking a few decades to travel to other stars is relatively short. :P

Very interesting indeed! And, perhaps, a unique perspective on interstellar travel. Would make for absolutely horrible SF movies, though:

"Mr. Quantz, take us up to tortuguesque and set her on autopilot."
"Aye, sir. Creeping along at tortuga speed! We should arrive at Spaltz in 26 years 18 days 4 hours, present speed."
"Very good, Mr Quantz. So, lads, what shall we do with ourselves for the next two decades..."

The main thing I can see mitigating agáinst STL space travel is that, having spent millennia on engineering themselves to longevity, they would be putting themselves at incredible risk to space ship malfunction or attack or resource depletion or toilets clogging up en route to their destination. Problems that would be reduced if not entirely solved by getting there faster.

[cntrational]

Yes, I wouldn’t go deep into how the FTL drive works, unless it's critical to the setting or plot -- e.g., a culture based around wormholes which have to be dragged into place at sublight speeds.

As for slowship travel times -- you could use cryonics or some other form of suspension, though that creates side-effects like "one of your teammates died? throw him in the suspension pod until we can get back to base to revive him", which if applied broadly, gets rid of death as a normal thing.

FWIW, my current iteration of my sci-fi conworld has no FTL, humans stay in the Sol system, and occasionally send one-way ships to other star systems.