Carnassus & The Dream Engine

Discussions about constructed worlds, cultures and any topics related to constructed societies.
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Carnassus & The Dream Engine

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

In addition to responding to these two folks... I do want to turn this thread into something of an AMA where folks can ask whatever strikes their fancy and I will try to figure out how things work. However, again, I could really use any useful input on climate and actual planet-building you folks can manage.
Dormouse559 wrote: 30 Dec 2017 19:42 *Puts on sunglasses and hurries toward a waiting limo* No comment, darling! [B)]
Heh, nice.
Well, I did have a couple of questions. I already knew from your previous posts that on Carnassus, land was changed to water and water to land, but looking at your map, it looks like the world may have also been flipped longitudinally (or, rather, the longitude lines were flipped; I'm never sure how to describe mirroring). Could you confirm that?
Yes, indeed. The map was mirrored as well. Originally, I didn't want to do this, but I felt that it would make the map look just a bit more alien, and also still seem somewhat familiar (maybe in equal measure?) Also, it fits with the idea of reversal, and making this opposite. I'm trying to determine if that requires anything else to change, but I am still kinda looking into climate and not really satisfied with my ability to make any logical predictions from what little I've read. Hopefully I can make things work so that I don't have to recolor the map and move the desert...
And how have the changes affected tectonics? More specifically, did the Dream Engine change the underlying plates to make the new arrangement?
I mean, it kinda has to, right? In order to literally reverse everything, it seems like stuff below the surface would need to shift at least a little as well, right? If it is possible to maintain the plates as they were and merely have the direction of push alternate (trenches are now mountains so that means that areas of subduction (is that the right word?) would now need to be forcing things upward instead to explain mountains and such). But, I am really not well versed in that, so I haven't a clue how that would impact things on the planet.
I don't know how quickly it would happen, but I could imagine some version of Carnassus where the southern continent develops a cultural and linguistic exchange similar to Eurasia's.
This type of thing is also of interest to me. I know the human distribution will be wide, and there will NOT be a whole lot of people plopped down in any one spot. As such, I don't know how exploring and things will work out on the world. I also am not too sure how far into the future after these events take place I want to focus on. I am not writing a story in this world, really, outside of the one painted by crafting some cultures on the planet. As such, I still kind of want to keep the tech-level fairly low. But, this restricts some things. Also, the way culture and humans formed on this world is totally apart from any kind of evolution or what have you. I mean, people were literally placed in random assortments across the globe in somewhat randomized groupings. All of whom have no memory of anything and have no fore-knowledge of language or anything else. Each person is a blank slate. This is a fundamental shift in anything we know about how people function in groups. This gives me some latitude, but knowing what I know about psychology, it is also limiting in its own way. I'm not certain how all these threads will go together and am curious what others might think about it as well. All of that said, while at some point a vast sprawling Silk Road-esque thing might appear, and a lot of interchange might happen on the landmass that spans the majority of the globe... I also don't know if I really want that to be the case in the time-frame in which I most want to focus.
Khemehekis wrote: 31 Dec 2017 02:16 Hey, this is a neat backstory for a conworld, especially the invention of the dream engine! It's good to see that you're working so hard on a conworld. You've said before on at least two occasions that you're really interested in inventing con-scripts and invent conlangs and conworlds so you'll have backgrounds for your alphabets, syllabaries, abjads, abugidas, and logographies. Here, however, I get the impression that your world is the star of the show in this story, so to speak.
Yeah, this is a pretty big shift in where my creativity usually flows, but this type of idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while now and I am only just now posting about it. Basically, I have wanted a reason why all of my languages have these weird hints of our Earth and yet can't or won't ever plausibly develop in our world. Latin will never become Cherokee, Japanese will most assuredly not evolve as my version will, German won't suddenly become a tricon with a runic script, and something like Hangul won't morph into a weird stacking script, nor will a Tangut-esque script crawl out of obscurity to be used again as a basis for a written language. And yet, all of these languages have this sort of quintessentially "our world" quality to them yet none of them seem to make sense here. As such, I really wanted a place that was here... but not. I think this sort of Bizarro-World conplanet I am crafting does the job. It's like the Dream Engine took some shortcuts and the brains of the people haven't all been completely erased and some vague traces of what they knew may yet linger and influence how writing and speaking develop for them.

*le shrug*

I am a bit tired and probably rambling too much. Hopefully that makes some amount of sense?
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Khemehekis
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Re: Carnassus & The Dream Engine

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Thrice Xandvii wrote: 31 Dec 2017 09:02
Khemehekis wrote: 31 Dec 2017 02:16 Hey, this is a neat backstory for a conworld, especially the invention of the dream engine! It's good to see that you're working so hard on a conworld. You've said before on at least two occasions that you're really interested in inventing con-scripts and invent conlangs and conworlds so you'll have backgrounds for your alphabets, syllabaries, abjads, abugidas, and logographies. Here, however, I get the impression that your world is the star of the show in this story, so to speak.
Yeah, this is a pretty big shift in where my creativity usually flows, but this type of idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while now and I am only just now posting about it. Basically, I have wanted a reason why all of my languages have these weird hints of our Earth and yet can't or won't ever plausibly develop in our world. Latin will never become Cherokee, Japanese will most assuredly not evolve as my version will, German won't suddenly become a tricon with a runic script, and something like Hangul won't morph into a weird stacking script, nor will a Tangut-esque script crawl out of obscurity to be used again as a basis for a written language. And yet, all of these languages have this sort of quintessentially "our world" quality to them yet none of them seem to make sense here. As such, I really wanted a place that was here... but not. I think this sort of Bizarro-World conplanet I am crafting does the job. It's like the Dream Engine took some shortcuts and the brains of the people haven't all been completely erased and some vague traces of what they knew may yet linger and influence how writing and speaking develop for them.

*le shrug*

I am a bit tired and probably rambling too much. Hopefully that makes some amount of sense?
So that's why you created this scenario! It makes perfect sense now! (I'll never have the same problem because I stick to a priori conlanging.)

Or you could just say this is how it worked in a different universe in the multiverse . . .
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Carnassus & The Dream Engine

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Khemehekis wrote: 01 Jan 2018 09:42 Or you could just say this is how it worked in a different universe in the multiverse . . .
I could do, yes.

But for one, that seems a bit "hand-wavey" for my taste; and two, what would I do with this wonderful idea I have here!?
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Carnassus & The Dream Engine

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Thrice Xandvii wrote: 31 Dec 2017 09:02... this type of idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while now and I am only just now posting about it. Basically, I have wanted a reason why all of my languages have these weird hints of our Earth and yet can't or won't ever plausibly develop in our world. Latin will never become Cherokee, Japanese will most assuredly not evolve as my version will, German won't suddenly become a tricon with a runic script, and something like Hangul won't morph into a weird stacking script, nor will a Tangut-esque script crawl out of obscurity to be used again as a basis for a written language. And yet, all of these languages have this sort of quintessentially "our world" quality to them yet none of them seem to make sense here. As such, I really wanted a place that was here... but not. I think this sort of Bizarro-World conplanet I am crafting does the job. It's like the Dream Engine took some shortcuts and the brains of the people haven't all been completely erased and some vague traces of what they knew may yet linger and influence how writing and speaking develop for them. ...
Hooray!

I need to come up with something similar to explain why Adpihi, and its languages and history, has so many suspiciously Earth-like features.
So far I've been using the "cut-off accidentally crash-landed colony" idea, and protecting it with "the characters in the story can't explain it either".
I don't think I'll use your method. Yet I'm envious that you thought of it and I didn't!

I look forward to more!

Happy 2018!
And good dreaming!
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Carnassus & The Dream Engine

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I think I will call the "event" that created the world as the "Catalepsys." It's an archaic spelling of a word used most often in psychiatric circles to refer to a type of catatonic schizophrenia in which people become statuesque and experience a "loss of contact with [the environment]." Both parts easily could refer to those people who are in suspended animation, while the second continues to refer to the beginning state of everyone else. Plus there is sort of a dreaming/disconnected connotation to this diagnosis and schizophrenia in general.
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Re: Carnassus & The Dream Engine

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Thrice Xandvii wrote: 01 Jan 2018 14:59
Khemehekis wrote: 01 Jan 2018 09:42 Or you could just say this is how it worked in a different universe in the multiverse . . .
I could do, yes.

But for one, that seems a bit "hand-wavey" for my taste; and two, what would I do with this wonderful idea I have here!?
I'd never try to part you and your wonderful idea. (I'm not too concerned with handwaving, although when I have an idea that conflicts with the understanding of modern Terran science, like for instance the same species evolving independently on different planets, I'll either say that the science of the Lehola galaxy doesn't know why or try to explain it somehow; I'll say that God designed it this way in this universe and guided evolution. I'm open to the idea of an intelligent creator, being a deist IRL.)
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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