(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[lurker]

What is a good term for the boss/head of a wizard association/council? Also, what is a good term for that council?

Anything other than “Imperial Wizard”.

[Salmoneus]

What is a good term for the boss/head of a wizard association/council? Also, what is a good term for that council?

There's no answer to that.

There are two ways you could decide (or you could find a compromise between the two): internal logic, and artistic function.

Internal logic would ask what words these people would most logically use in your conworld, given everything else you've established about them.

Artistic function would ask what artistic effect you are intending to create for a (real or hypothetical) audience. What feeling are you aiming at producing?

For instance, consider these organizations:

- the Marglepaff University of Eldritch Hocus-Pocus, headed by the Archchancellor

- the Advanced School of Thaurmaturgical and Psionic Research, headed by the Senior Director

- the College of the Arcane, headed by the Provost

- the Imperial Society of Occult Studies, headed by the Doctor-President

- the Ministry of Magic, headed by the Senior Undersecretary

- the Office of Fringe Science, headed by the First Academician

- the Bureau of Administrative and Investigatory Co-ordination, headed by the Chief Superintendent

- the Paranormal Corps, headed by the Lieutenant-Marshal

- the Celestial Order, headed by the Magus Rex

- the Society of Numinal Purity, headed by the Grand Ancient Dragon

- the Council of Wizards, headed by the Great Wizard

- the Unseen Instrument, headed by the Sorcerer Supreme

- the Threefold Order of Dagometh, headed by the Darker Servant

- the Children of R'gyath, headed by the Unspoken One

- the Priory of Absolom, headed by the Vicar-General

- the Other Realm, headed by the Shadow Monarch

- the Universal Temple, headed by the Annointed

- the Tea Group, headed by Nanny Thatcher

- etc etc

-------

My point is: there are no wizard organisations, so there is no way that wizard organizations are generally named.

To name a wizard organisation, if you don't want to just make up random terms, you have to think of a different sort of organization and borrow their terms. But the choice of 'parent' organization has a big impact on the feel of the group, and in turn must develop naturally from the rest of the settin.

So different stories have wizard organizations based on universities, learned societies, the Illuminati, governments and government departments, police, the military, various religious groups (orders, monastic groups, temples, Catholicism, etc), civil society groups, NGOs, etc etc. The choice has to be based on what 'feel' you are going for, and what fits the setting.

[Salmoneus]

I'm no economist, so I have no idea if this would make sense, even for a Kardashev II civilization, particularly since I've already established that normal space colonies exist to fill this need. But the idea just sounds too cool to ignore.[/qauote]You could justify it if your society has rampant capitalism that allows bajillionaires to just use their money for whatever random dumb thing they want to get done. Imagine your dog-binturong version of Elon Musk x10000000 who just decides "I want to live in 0g without exposing myself to cosmic radiation" and makes some return by running it as a hotel/living space for the ultra-wealthy and also allowing scientific experiments or whatever to be carried out there.

On an Earth-like planet, assuming AI did the calculations correctly for me, it would be travelling at 7,905 m/s and would take about 1.4 hours to orbit once. Whee!

I already have space tree doggo commies (the Partisans), so I suppose I'll need space tree doggo capitalists as well.

I need to figure out the economics of interplanetary travel and orbital archolocies first I suppose. I know that IRL, at least for satellites, the cost isn't so much building the craft itself. You can build a cube sat for the cost of a high end gaming PC. It's actually getting it into space where you have to fork over millions of dollars. So how to make getting into orbit cheap enough that its an every day thing. Right now I'm going with the old standby of space elevators.

But then the question becomes if you can go into space as easily a we take a flight then why have this overengineered train thing?

It may be worth pointing out that every trip to meet the orbital train would be as expensive as sending a rocket to space, because that's essentially what you'd be doing (the problem isn't sendin thins to 'space', the place, but to orbital velocity, which is even higher at sea level than in space).

And even the slightest fault anywhere on the tracks - a small loss of vacuum, a loss of levitation, a tiny speck of debris left in the tube - will mean instant death for all occupants, and probably anyone within hundreds of miles of the crash site.

And that maintaining a vacuum is one of the hardest things you can try to do (the world leaks!), particulalrly because you'd have to keep re-creatin the vacuum in the feeder tunnels every time you broke it by putting people on the feeder train.

And that there is no point to any of this.

IT's true that orbital trains have long been popular with SF authors, but generally they put them somewhere like mars, with little atmosphere and little gravity.

[zyma]

What is a good term for the boss/head of a wizard association/council? Also, what is a good term for that council?

Anything other than “Imperial Wizard”.

I was going to suggest avoiding "Grand/Imperial Wizard" as well, unless it's your intention for this fictional group to be compared to the Ku Klux Klan.

What is a good term for the boss/head of a wizard association/council?

Boss, Big Man, Ruler...would magic-users have a different word for that, than they would for someone running a nonmagical organization or community?

Also, what is a good term for that council?

Probably depends on what the council does or used to do...sending Harry Dresden to The Advisory Council probably would have a different feel from, say, the Governance By Magics council.

I would have thought that there are more common terms in high fantasy settings. Maybe something like elder?

Something like "elder" could work, in my opinion, although I don't immediately associate it with magic or high fantasy in particular. The term "archmage" comes to mind, but based on the Google search results I'm getting, this may be specific to D&D. Perhaps you could use "magistrate" or "magister" due to their superficial resemblance to the word "magic".

Especially if you're not necessarily looking for a title that has a clear connection to magic or is exclusive to wizards, though, then the possibilities are pretty much endless.

Edit: Salmoneus has expressed this a lot more clearly and in more detail above.

Also, Harry Potter has the Wizengamot, which to my German-native ears sounded very specifically wizard-like.

You may already be aware, but I assume that the name, at least, was based on this (see also).

[Salmoneus]

I should probably add: another common option in fantasy settings is to model magical craft on mediaeval European non-magical crafts and have a guild: hence master and apprentice, often some intermediary term equivalent to 'journeyman', probably a council of masters and some sort of 'grandmaster'.

I also meant to mention knightly orders specifically.

Many organisations, of course, may have mixed influences (in real life as well as in fiction). And realistically there may not be a single organization for all magic-users; or, if there is, it may be the complex result of mergers between different sorts of prior organization.

[Keenir]

How stupid is this idea?

Not stupid at all.

I'm no economist, so I have no idea if this would make sense, even for a Kardashev II civilization, particularly since I've already established that normal space colonies exist to fill this need. But the idea just sounds too cool to ignore.

do the colonies belong to anyone/anygroup in particular? maybe the longtrain is considered neutral territory?

also, from how you described it, I think it would not be terribly expensive or hard for a Kardashev II...probably not even for a Kardashev I.

But then the question becomes if you can go into space as easily a we take a flight then why have this overengineered train thing?

Well, the answer that leaps to my mind is this: just because its easy to go into space, doesn't mean you automatically have a place to stay while you're there; particularly a safe stay.

[lurker]

do the colonies belong to anyone/anygroup in particular? maybe the longtrain is considered neutral territory?

Colonies at Focus are analogous to smallish islands on Earth. At least that's the economic analogy I'm going with. They range in autonomy from completely independent states to being 100% under the control of a planetary (or lunar) government. That's another thing I have to figure out, how states are divided among the planets and moons and so forth.

The reason orbital colonies exist in the first place, and the reason why this train idea could seem slightly less insane, is that the yinrih, as arboreal quadrupeds, see gravity as an obstacle to be overcome at an almost instinctive level (I have no hands and I must grasp). They'll jump at any chance to get it out of the picture.

Of course then the question becomes if they can so easily live in microgravity where they can use all four paws and tail for grasping then why live planetside? My running explanation for that is that you give up living space and scenery in order to gain the freedom to use all your li'l grabbies at once, so planets are still attractive for their open space and vistas that aren't just gray bulkheads and the occasional starry window.

And that's where the train comes in. You have all the genuine locomotor advantages that microgravity can provide plus the advantages of living on a planet's surface.

[lurker]

It may be worth pointing out that every trip to meet the orbital train would be as expensive as sending a rocket to space, because that's essentially what you'd be doing (the problem isn't sendin thins to 'space', the place, but to orbital velocity, which is even higher at sea level than in space).

And even the slightest fault anywhere on the tracks - a small loss of vacuum, a loss of levitation, a tiny speck of debris left in the tube - will mean instant death for all occupants, and probably anyone within hundreds of miles of the crash site.

And that maintaining a vacuum is one of the hardest things you can try to do (the world leaks!), particulalrly because you'd have to keep re-creatin the vacuum in the feeder tunnels every time you broke it by putting people on the feeder train.

And that there is no point to any of this.

IT's true that orbital trains have long been popular with SF authors, but generally they put them somewhere like mars, with little atmosphere and little gravity.

Good food for thought regarding the speed and vacuum issues.

I disagree that there's no point at all. Unlike humans, the yinrih gain measurable advantages living in microgravity because they normally have to walk on all fours. To do anything more complex than simply holding a small object (using the tail) they have to stop and rear up on their hind feet like a rodent in order to use their front paws. If they want to use their equally dexterous rear paws they have to lie on their back or straddle a perch on their belly. If you remove gravity from the picture suddenly they go from having their one tail tail available while moving to having all five appendages available for grasping and manipulation.

However, just because there are reasons to do this, doesn't mean it's economically viable. I'm liking the idea that the train is a megaproject dreamed up by someone with more money than sense, or it could be an ill-advised government run boondoggle.

[Arayaz]

Could a reasonably advanced civilization reasonably construct stations in interstellar space? What advancements that modern-day Earth doesn't have would be necessary to create one?

[Keenir]

Could a reasonably advanced civilization reasonably construct stations in interstellar space?

Yes. if they can get to interstellar space, they can build there.

What advancements that modern-day Earth doesn't have would be necessary to create one?

The biggest requirement would be the ability to keep track of where the stations are, and not lose track of them.

[Keenir]

do the colonies belong to anyone/anygroup in particular? maybe the longtrain is considered neutral territory?

Of course then the question becomes if they can so easily live in microgravity where they can use all four paws and tail for grasping then why live planetside? My running explanation for that is that you give up living space and scenery in order to gain the freedom to use all your li'l grabbies at once, so planets are still attractive for their open space and vistas that aren't just gray bulkheads and the occasional starry window.

Possibly even more important than that, is that, if the yinrih are anything like organisms on Earth, its easier to have fetal and childhood growth and development in a gravity well, than in microgravity. (possibly also childmaking - even NASA is still not in the testing phase for that yet, as theyre still working out what equipment would or wouldn't theoretically work)

[lurker]

do the colonies belong to anyone/anygroup in particular? maybe the longtrain is considered neutral territory?

Of course then the question becomes if they can so easily live in microgravity where they can use all four paws and tail for grasping then why live planetside? My running explanation for that is that you give up living space and scenery in order to gain the freedom to use all your li'l grabbies at once, so planets are still attractive for their open space and vistas that aren't just gray bulkheads and the occasional starry window.

Possibly even more important than that, is that, if the yinrih are anything like organisms on Earth, its easier to have fetal and childhood growth and development in a gravity well, than in microgravity. (possibly also childmaking - even NASA is still not in the testing phase for that yet, as theyre still working out what equipment would or wouldn't theoretically work)

A good point. I might use that. Although the yinrih's reproductive strategy is very alien. Both genders lay eggs, and the eggs are fertilized by putting the male and female eggs into a nest together. The initial egg-laying process is probably unaffected by microgravity, but I'm sure the growth of the womb-nest (an external "uterus" that forms over the clutch of eggs) would be negatively affected, to say nothing of the kits gestating within.

However, that has some narrative implications since the mission that finds Earth embarks from an orbital archology that is, at the time, a recently founded refugee camp, which would contain people of all ages. When viable FTL travel is perfected about a year after First Contact, the colony, which has grown into a thriving little city-state of sorts, becomes the egress point for the mass router trunk line between Sol and Focus.

[lurker]

Could a reasonably advanced civilization reasonably construct stations in interstellar space? What advancements that modern-day Earth doesn't have would be necessary to create one?

There are a couple issues I can see with interstellar stations.

Where do the resources come from? Interstellar space is pretty empty. Unless they have trivial FTL travel the logistics would be a nightmare, So I'd say FTL is a must.

Second, it's hard enough for us to keep track of satellites in orbit, it's even harder to keep track of something like the Voyager probes. Now multiply that by however many light years you are from the nearest inhabited planet or star system. Some of this is mitigated by having a living crew aboard the station that can repair broken equipment, but then that just brings us back to the resource issue.

Just an IRL example I can give from experience: There are many amateur satellites in orbit. The only way we can know what the condition of these satellites is is if the satellite is successfully sending telemetry that we can pick up. This website uses crowd-sourcing to gauge the reachability of these satellites. You can pretty easily lose track of a satellite, or its power could fail only to wake up again years later. Look for info on zombie satellites. It's interesting stuff that might help fuel your imagination.

[Keenir]

Could a reasonably advanced civilization reasonably construct stations in interstellar space? What advancements that modern-day Earth doesn't have would be necessary to create one?

There are a couple issues I can see with interstellar stations.

Where do the resources come from? Interstellar space is pretty empty. Unless they have trivial FTL travel the logistics would be a nightmare, So I'd say FTL is a must.

maybe the resources come from mining the Ooort Clouds (or anything else between the Ooorts and interstellar regions)...or they effectively grow their resources in interstellar space (a big need, at least from the POV of current Earth, is water being an excellent shield against radiations)

Second, it's hard enough for us to keep track of satellites in orbit, it's even harder to keep track of something like the Voyager probes. Now multiply that by however many light years you are from the nearest inhabited planet or star system. Some of this is mitigated by having a living crew aboard the station that can repair broken equipment, but then that just brings us back to the resource issue.

Ah, but humans are not yet a Kardashev I Civilization...by the time humans get to the point of being able to send more than the rare probe out into interstellar space, they will be *at least* Kardashev I, imho, so keeping track of satilites will be more like having an app to keep track of where your kids left their phones.

[Imralu]

But then the question becomes if you can go into space as easily a we take a flight then why have this overengineered train thing?

Because it's fun? If you enjoy thinking about it, a nutcase gajillionaire space tree doggo might like the idea too.

Just throwing out ideas, but maybe also, one way of launching into space is to use a kind of launcher like this. You could have a ring all the way around the equator to build up speed and then a kind of offramp that goes straight into space. (Much better if you have a very, very high mountain range somewhere on the equator.) That way, the launch could just involve plain electric power rather than anything involving fuels that get ejected (although maybe fuel based launches are made obsolete by other forms of propulsion anyway).

[Creyeditor]

@Kenir, Sal, Shimo: Thanks for the input. I might go with Archwizard. Bit of background: this is about the Wizard Republic (or Republic of Wizards)* on Fredauon. They are more technologically advanced than their immediate southern neighbours, which is why most exonyms are based on terms for wizards, which also leaked into the endonyms, because the state is not based on a single ethnic group and needed to come up with a term for itself at some point. Internally, the head of state would probably be called the Kobardon-equivalent of 'president' and the council might just be 'the council' or 'the senate'. But I thought it would be nice to have an exonym for the president that somehow takes up the idea of 'Wizard' again. I really like 'Archwizard' now, and I might just use it.

@Sal: I really like the argument that there are no wizard organizations, so there is no geberal rule. I also try to serve both internal logic with the endonyms and the artistic function with the exonyms. Hope that makes sense.

*It's not really a republic at the earlier stages of history, but it was established in response to a monarchy, so I will call it republic. It probably could be called a councilist elective aristocratic monarchy with a palace economy, too.

[lurker]

Would a longer-lived species advance technologically more slowly than a shorter-lived one? I have 100,000 (earth) years of history to map out and it feels overwhelming. Even if I scale that number to reflect the yinrih's ~724 year lifespan I'm still left with an equivalent of over 10,000 years.

[Glenn]

Following up on the discussion of wizardly titles for a moment:

The term "archmage" comes to mind, but based on the Google search results I'm getting, this may be specific to D&D.

I first encountered the title "Archmage" in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, the first volume of which was published in 1968, prior to the creation of D&D, although I think it may have influenced the latter.

I was curious about the history of the term, so I did a very quick search; apparently, "archimage" appears in the writings of John Foxe, circa 1570, and the character Archimago in Spencer's The Faerie Queene in 1590. Le Guin may or may not have been the first to use the spelling "Archmage" (one source I found seemed to think so, but I am skeptical); at any rate, that is the version that has been popularized since.

@Kenir, Sal, Shimo: Thanks for the input. I might go with Archwizard. Bit of background: this is about the Wizard Republic (or Republic of Wizards)* on Fredauon. They are more technologically advanced than their immediate southern neighbours, which is why most exonyms are based on terms for wizards(...)

Are they called "wizards" only because of their advanced technology, or is there magic (in the fantasy sense) involved as well?

*It's not really a republic at the earlier stages of history, but it was established in response to a monarchy, so I will call it republic. It probably could be called a councilist elective aristocratic monarchy with a palace economy, too.

That sounds quite interesting! Does that mean that there is a governing council of aristocrats who elect a monarch, or something else? If the economy is described as a palace economy, that implies a system that is quite centralized; is this the case?

[Keenir]

Would a longer-lived species advance technologically more slowly than a shorter-lived one?

maybe. or maybe not. :)

I have 100,000 (earth) years of history to map out and it feels overwhelming. Even if I scale that number to reflect the yinrih's ~724 year lifespan I'm still left with an equivalent of over 10,000 years.

they don't have to do constant advancements - you pointed out earlier that they don't always have the use of most of their manipulator limbs, which probably would also slow things down...or it might reinforce a habit of methodicalness and repeating attempts (those that work and those that don't, including the developmental paths that take them down avenues of discovery that don't lead to spaceflight, but provide satisfaction in other ways)

[Vlürch]

Not sure if this is a quick question, but it doesn't feel worth making a new thread for, especially since I know it almost certainly doesn't have an objective answer since it's already unrealistic to begin with, and pretty much anything can be handwaved, but... if you took landforms (ie. an archipelago that's IRL waaaayyy underwater) and made it so that it's above the surface (ie. as if the sea level was thousands of metres lower, but only at that point... as in the land was elevated by that much, not that the sea level was lowered)... if the shape of the coastlines is about the same as it would be if the sea level was lowered, is it way too unrealistic for the actual landforms and geology and whatnot on the surface to be different from what would exist if the sea level was lowered?

If that's confusing, I guess a picture is worth a thousand words:

The left one is at least more or less what the actual topography under the water is like, the right one is what I came up with (some of the smaller islands are blank because I haven't been arsed with them yet) when I figured the handwave of "if I'm selectively making some land elevated by 2500+ metres, I can do whatever I want with its topography" was good enough. Every colour corresponds to about 100 metres, except the darkest green being anything under 50 metres, starting from dark green and going up to white and then to red and darker to purple as the highest if it's not obvious. I didn't include rivers, but there are a bunch of them; the huge gorge is important, unless it's too unrealistic and I should scrap it... I see what could be a gorge IRL as well, just going south instead of north and much less extreme (and maybe potentially with enough weathering, another one going in the same direction as the anything-goes gorge), and I'll use any handwave I can to justify having it.

Now, obviously the left one is more realistic in terms of terrain while the right one is literally just "HUGE MOUNTAINS LOL" (aside from a few coincidental similarities to the IRL topography), and I might end up going with some kind of compromise between the two in any case (even though I've grown attached to the right one tbh lol), but like... is there any realistic justification for it? Like, was my original handwave reasonable in the sense that the geology of the region would be so different that it doesn't matter how much is changed? My only concern with that is the coastlines matching an arbitrary IRL hypothetical sea level change, since it makes it taking a sea level in a way that's "realistic" and then going "anything goes" with the details above the surface. I'll admit part of the reason I'd prefer not to just go with the IRL topography is that I spent at least a week drawing the anything-goes topography pretty much pixel by pixel, then spent like 15 minutes on the IRL topography... because I thought "I'll obviously prefer what I came up with", and I do, but there are some things about the IRL topography that I prefer. Also, I just really like the idea of a ridiculous mountain range in the middle of the island.

I mean, I know a mountain massif that goes up to 5200 metres on an island around the same size as Taiwan is kinda ridiculous, but would volcanism be possible to handwave that? The two main "bulges" being extinct-ish volcanoes (in the sense that the main mountains aren't gonna just explode and destroy the world or whatever, but that there's still volcanism all along the slopes and whatnot) that kinda just went ham long enough ago and for a long enough time that it resulted in this kind of formation? The southern one has a small crater in it near the peak because of a recent eruption (in the 7th century), but that's meant to be like VEI4; if I'd have to go with the IRL topography, then it'd just be one of the many smaller mountains that erupted.

I'm 99.999999999% certainly doing "anything goes" for the rest of the archipelago because I've spent way too many months on what's IRL Broken Ridge and Ninety East Ridge to just scrap all of it, but this one island (and the smaller islands around it) is the most important and I don't know if the whole "HUGE MOUNTAINS LOL" stands out as too unrealistic? IRL it's the Amsterdam-Saint Paul Plateau, which is volcanic, so... unless I'm even stupider than I think I am, wouldn't that mean it'd just require a whole lot more volcanism? I mean, even on top of the already required whole lot more volcanism to get the whole thing's elevation raised by 2500 metres.

Since I'm already asking about this, I might as well ask if it's realistic that the northeast would have a tropical climate with rainforests and stuff, the south and western coast would have an oceanic or temperate climate and the western highlands would have some kinda semi-desert climate? The rest of the world is the same as IRL except for some minor differences in a few things just because (at least for now), so the climate is supposed to be exactly the same as IRL. I don't really understand how the climate works so I don't know what the climate would actually be like, but my logic is that southern Australia is ridiculously hot and it's about the same latitude; New Zealand apparently has some tropical parts too but is mostly oceanic and Amsterdam Island is oceanic, and I'm pretty sure the mountains would cause a rainshadow, so I don't think it'd be unrealistic?

This is getting pretty long so I'm not gonna ask about any conculture stuff, although I'd have some questions about that too... but well, those I can at least handwave as all this extra land even just existing changing things somewhat, even if it didn't really have much effect elsewhere, which might be unrealistic, but whatever.