A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

For 'verse proposals, random ideas, musings, and brainwaves.

Moderators: Invictus, speaker-to-trolls

Post Reply
User avatar
Dakarne
Posts: 578
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 5:00 pm
Location: England. :(
Contact:

A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

Post by Dakarne »

Okay, this one's been brewing up in various mostly-unposted forms for a long while (but, which I can only apologise profusely for, discussed extensively over various messenger conversations with many of you here), as several different personal settings of mine that have slowly begun coalescing into a single coherent setting that is in fact a little bit different than what I originally set out to create. Not necessarily a bad thing, I think, in this case. I refer to this as a 'mild shift of paradigm' because it in fact is a shift of paradigm, considering that the previous setting which forms the core of this is in fact the superhero setting, Section 20. Not quite a dead setting, just one that I've not really posted much on, and one that is evolving into this present state.

Introduction
The year is approximately 20482 CE from our modern perspective, well over eighteen thousand years into our own future, and most humans have long since abandoned our world for new homes amongst the stars or for the great ringworld of Sol Corona that encircles our sun and is the largest permanent human habitat with well over two hundred and eighty trillion beings living upon its surface. With a radius of over a hundred and seventy million kilometres, it is wider than the orbit of Earth, which remains as a popular tourist destination and museum of human culture and innovation, home now to only two billion people. In the home systems, things seem to be mostly at peace, and living conditions upon Sol Corona can be described as paradise.

And with the alliance generated by the Stellar Unity, between humankind and its closest neighbours within the galaxy.

But the universe is a strange place, inhabited by unusual and often dangerous phenomena. On the very far edges of civilised space, things are less comfortable, and humankind for all of its technology and magic and unique powers might well be unsuited for. And even at home, some of the close-knit alliances of the Stellar Unity are threatened frequently by extremists on all sides who believe that their species ought to keep to itself. Or worse, ought to expand and add several more species to their empire. In some cases there have been entirely new empires and civilisations forming from the existing governments in protest, as with the human Empire of New Arcadia.

The human paradise is at constant threat from forces that must be fought.

Notes
This setting, to remove any fleeting traces of ambiguity, is a space opera. It also happens to be very similar to the title of a previous setting that I suggested, Symphony of the Endless. I renamed it specifically because I wanted to make the 'space opera' connotation a little more clear, but you will find many of the successor elements of that setting in this one. In fact, there are many old settings of mine that will be incorporated into this, especially given one or two minor ideas I've had about them over the years. The only major exception is in fact my 'first setting'; the old Crimson Chronicle setting which featured vampires, werewolves and other things that are now common-as-the-bloody-cold amongst teenage urban fantasy paranormal romance fiction is not going to be appearing in this 'verse.

Though a lot of fantasy elements are going to be making an appearance. And that brings me to a description of what this setting is, beyond the more generic title of space opera, since that covers a fairly wide-ranging genre. I suppose it's a setting that owes its existence to the writings of Doc Smith, Isaac Asimov, Iain M. Banks. Larry Niven, Lois McMaster Bujold, Arthur C. Clarke, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Andre Norton, Jack Vance, Ursula LeGuin, Shuster and Siegel, Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, and Neil Gaiman. Probably many more besides. I don't have space for them all, I'm afraid.

Generally, it's a transgalactic space opera in which humanity has taken to the stars, interacting with alien cultures, suffering from political infighting, and engaging in the occasional galactic war. But there are also magic and superheroes in it. I'll be detailing this more later, but this does bring me to two major preliminary notes.

As is insanely obvious, and to drive the point home, the science in this setting is about as hard as melted butter. Nothing against hard science, but it's mutually exclusive with what I'm trying to manage here. I'm not going to be completely disregarding certain elements to an extent, but this is the kind of space opera that has planet-smashing energy beams being exchanged by mile-long starships able to traverse distances of millions of lighyears in a matter of days. It is in fact the kind of space opera that has honest-to-Darwin wizards wielding genuine wave-your-hand-and-speak-an-incantation magic. Unlike most other space opera, mind, I actually call it magic. I also have something separate called psionics. I'll be dealing with those in specific notes later. It's best to view this as a high fantasy setting with lasers, spaceships and distant planets replacing the respective swords, horses and nearby kingdoms.

The second important note here is that this setting is not military science fiction. Though I have a military present, and I may be including some mention of it, the science fiction aspects of this setting are orientated towards space opera first and foremost. And that plays second fiddle to the superhero and fantasy aspects of the setting, serving mostly as the backdrop. Expect more descriptions of the weird ideas and societal implications thereof than detail about weapons and militaries. I won't be neglecting it, but it won't be a preeminent focus.

And now we've gotten that business out of the way... I'll be expanding more in a following post on some aspects such as magic, superheroes, technology and how it all fits in. Albeit quite slowly.
Image
'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
User avatar
Heretic
Posts: 1750
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 4:45 pm
Location: IN AMERICA

Re: A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

Post by Heretic »

HOLY MORFIN FORK~! Dakarne, are you there? are you okay?! This isn't like you! A Universe that isn't urban magical OR Hard-on Science Fiction?

A-a S-space Opera? You? Kinda like magitek stuff? WIth superheroes?!
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
-Joseph Campbell
User avatar
Dakarne
Posts: 578
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 5:00 pm
Location: England. :(
Contact:

Re: A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

Post by Dakarne »

Heretic wrote:HOLY MORFIN FORK~! Dakarne, are you there? are you okay?! This isn't like you! A Universe that isn't urban magical OR Hard-on Science Fiction?
I've never done hard science fiction. In the recent hard-versus-soft science fiction debate, I was on the soft side due to my origins in writing and dealing with explicitly magical fantasy fiction.
A-a S-space Opera? You? Kinda like magitek stuff? WIth superheroes?!
Yes. I actually have an existing superhero universe which this is an almost-inevitable offshoot from.

If it helps, view this as something like Tears of the Goddess, a classical fantasy universe, set in space. Not so much magitek as you'd expect, though.
Image
'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
User avatar
Heretic
Posts: 1750
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 4:45 pm
Location: IN AMERICA

Re: A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

Post by Heretic »

Hunh, for some reason I always thought you as the urban fantasy/hard sci-fi type of guy. Guess I have a preset notion about certain people :?

Anyway, this looks cool and can't wait to see how it'll turn out.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
-Joseph Campbell
User avatar
Magister Militum
Posts: 921
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 8:01 pm
Location: California

Re: A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

Post by Magister Militum »

As someone who once experimented with high fantasy meets space opera a long time ago, I fully approve of this venture and eagerly await more. Maybe this might inspire me to finally get off my ass and work on my project in order to breathe some life to O1.
Democratic Socialist | Atheist | Transhumanist | Bright Green Environmentalist | Worldbuilder | IT Professional |


Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
User avatar
Dakarne
Posts: 578
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 5:00 pm
Location: England. :(
Contact:

Re: A mild shift of paradigm: Symphony of the Cosmos

Post by Dakarne »

Thanks. I'm hoping to get a brief guide to the central government of the Interstellar Unity and the internal governing bodies that can be found within it done at some point, but it'll take a while to get all of that information together. It's a lot of work to build a bunch of fantasy kingdoms. I can imagine that it'd be a somewhat larger undertaking to build their nigh-galactic equivalent.
Image
'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
Post Reply