BLUE SUN ROOM

strange new worlds (fan fic cliches cont...)

POSTED BY: WYTCHCROFT
UPDATED: Sunday, August 19, 2007 20:11
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Friday, August 17, 2007 9:30 PM

WYTCHCROFT


sort of running on from a prev thread here...

i find it difficult to avoid cliches when creating and/describing new planets.. i sorta bend round best i can... (brief descriptions, not many environments) -- but it's a weak spot..

a lot of the fics tho seem to be set on the same world (very interchangeable)...

(i guess that fits the well known gag that all the planets in the tv show look like Malibu!)

... anyone agree??

any thoughts, tips on world creation - cliche avoidance etc much appreciated...


(i see the kissy fics are back!)



make someone a browncoat today - don't drive nobody away

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Friday, August 17, 2007 9:40 PM

DANNIISUPERNOVA


Too much desert. There's always this big wasteland with no color and lots of heat and a hick town with yokels. I'm pretty sure everywhere in the Verse doesn't look like the damn Navajo Desert or the damned Oregon Trail.

_____

"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)

How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?

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Friday, August 17, 2007 9:45 PM

WYTCHCROFT


Quote:


How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?



LOL! HA HA! yeh, i'm just jealous coz i can't do that stuff!

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Friday, August 17, 2007 9:55 PM

ZONER


Quote:

Originally posted by wytchcroft:
Quote:


How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?



LOL! HA HA! yeh, i'm just jealous coz i can't do that stuff!



i know you wychfrend - r u truthful here?

i like western planets like on the show - but the movie had some new ones - they were a little diffrent maybe so now u can choose.

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Friday, August 17, 2007 10:06 PM

TUJIAOZUO


*Sneaks in to respond*

I get your drift with planet cliches. In the show, all of the planets looked like they were basically the foothills of Southern Cali. Not very attractive, dusty, nothing but shrubs and lizards. It's really easy to just either go along with that or the norm for all of the other fiction out there. It's like going along with the 'Kaylee is from Harvest' thing. It's so hard not to because it's fanon at a point.

My trick is more or less I've traveled a good deal in the nineteen years I've been on Earth-that-was. I do live in Cali where the series was filmed, but I know that Northern California is a far cry from Southern California, plus I have been to many other states, so I always try to incorperate a state or place into a town or planet. They're all so different, so it's easy to just insert an area I have seen myself. I just assume that every planet had a different reaction to the terra forming processs as well as posesses a different purpose for the Alliance. Poorer looking planets would just have settlers dumped on it, nicer ones like core planets would be used for more 'useful' and profitable things.

Aberdeen in my fic is generally that fine line between Montana and Wyoming. Montana has lots of prairie in certain areas, rolling hills that just go on forever (Especially right after you leave Glacier National Park, you exit the forest and are just immedaitely met with plains). However when you reach Wyoming, you have this sparse, hard, red desert like area for the most part.

Also, names really help convey the scene. The planet Sierra is all forest, and it's named (I made it up) for the mountain range nearest to my home, the Sierra Nevadas, and I wanted it to be more lush woods. A vacation planet for those who enjoy nature, that place that is up and coming, with fine dining, casinos, good shopping and spas popping up in small cities. So like a Lake Tahoe which is in the Sierra Nevadas. And Ming-Yu, the name of the new city the crew stayed at in my fic, translates into 'Brilliant Jade' (ironcally the name of a painting I did, but I digress). Jade is green and the city itself is nestled in the woods and would be flooded with green in the spring, so hence the name.

I really hope that helps and I'm not rambling. I'm, sure a much more seasoned and eloquent writer has a better response.

Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash

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Friday, August 17, 2007 10:12 PM

WYTCHCROFT


Interesting AND helpful - you rule!

making my mind move - thanks!

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Friday, August 17, 2007 10:25 PM

TUJIAOZUO


glad I could help... but one question...

Kissy fics? Elaborate please? lol.

Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 7:09 AM

DANNIISUPERNOVA


Haha. In my experience anyone can do anything if they try hard enough and practice. Seriously. Hey, do you need a beta? :)

_____

"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)

How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 7:12 AM

DANNIISUPERNOVA


Quote:

Originally posted by TuJiaoZuo:
*Sneaks in to respond*

I get your drift with planet cliches. In the show, all of the planets looked like they were basically the foothills of Southern Cali. Not very attractive, dusty, nothing but shrubs and lizards. It's really easy to just either go along with that or the norm for all of the other fiction out there. It's like going along with the 'Kaylee is from Harvest' thing. It's so hard not to because it's fanon at a point.

My trick is more or less I've traveled a good deal in the nineteen years I've been on Earth-that-was. I do live in Cali where the series was filmed, but I know that Northern California is a far cry from Southern California, plus I have been to many other states, so I always try to incorperate a state or place into a town or planet. They're all so different, so it's easy to just insert an area I have seen myself. I just assume that every planet had a different reaction to the terra forming processs as well as posesses a different purpose for the Alliance. Poorer looking planets would just have settlers dumped on it, nicer ones like core planets would be used for more 'useful' and profitable things.

Aberdeen in my fic is generally that fine line between Montana and Wyoming. Montana has lots of prairie in certain areas, rolling hills that just go on forever (Especially right after you leave Glacier National Park, you exit the forest and are just immedaitely met with plains). However when you reach Wyoming, you have this sparse, hard, red desert like area for the most part.

Also, names really help convey the scene. The planet Sierra is all forest, and it's named (I made it up) for the mountain range nearest to my home, the Sierra Nevadas, and I wanted it to be more lush woods. A vacation planet for those who enjoy nature, that place that is up and coming, with fine dining, casinos, good shopping and spas popping up in small cities. So like a Lake Tahoe which is in the Sierra Nevadas. And Ming-Yu, the name of the new city the crew stayed at in my fic, translates into 'Brilliant Jade' (ironcally the name of a painting I did, but I digress). Jade is green and the city itself is nestled in the woods and would be flooded with green in the spring, so hence the name.

I really hope that helps and I'm not rambling. I'm, sure a much more seasoned and eloquent writer has a better response.

Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash



Excellent example! My friend "hisgoodgirl" comes up with fabulous worlds and names and I honestly have no clue how she does it! I asked her once and she lives in South Carolina and says that she basis a lot of it off the area she lives in.
I guess it's an extension of "write what you know"


_____

"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)

How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 7:14 AM

WYTCHCROFT


Quote:

Originally posted by danniisupernova:
Too much desert. There's always this big wasteland with no color and lots of heat and a hick town with yokels. I'm pretty sure everywhere in the Verse doesn't look like the damn Navajo Desert or the damned Oregon Trail.

_____




thanks to this thread i have new ideas - i'm working on a Bayou meets VeKong Delta kinda place called Saleeni Station... hopefully (if i avoid the cliches THOSE places can contain) it will be fresh but still allow for a 'western' feel.

make someone a browncoat today / don't drive nobody away

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 7:29 AM

DANNIISUPERNOVA


I like the idea, but the name is a little odd. Does it have any inherent meaning or is just random?

_____

"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)

How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 7:32 AM

WYTCHCROFT


can't tell without poss spoiler!

but in one story i had BuMali

which is a joke on Malibu.

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 8:15 AM

DANNIISUPERNOVA


Ahh...

_____

"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)

How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 8:31 AM

NBZ


Any reason a full planet has to be the same? No need for themed planets at all IMO, (unless there is a specific reason)

After all we live on a single planet. We have oceans, rain forests, desserts, frozen bits, seasons and much much more.

Even if we assume that planets in the 'verse are much smaller, there will still be room for difference on the surface.

Ever Persephone may have a forest somewhere. After all they would want an ecosystem that could survive. Think of the cost of keeping it artificial. This is a little harder on smaller moons though, where there may be a permanent need for artificial atmo generation.

In the series, we had Bellerophon - a place for the fantastically rich, with floating palaces above an ocean. Mal still got stranded in a desert (probably a cost thing... more expensive to go and film at a different location?).

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 10:47 AM

REGINAROADIE


Admittedly, I haven't created a lot of worlds in my stories, but I also wrote what I know and apply it to my stories.

The only world I've created was Anubis in THE SERENITY GIG as a planet that's half saharan desert, half ocean, so that there's tons of beach property and a somewhat affluent culture there that's all stretched out in a ring around the planet, while half is just covered in water and the other half in sand. I don't know how realistic this would be, but I just like the idea of half of a planet being a desert wasteland and the other half just water.

But in writing for Regina (when I found out that there's a canon moon named Regina, after my hometown, I've changed Shooter's origin planet to there) and soon for Harvest, I'm basically writing about southern Saskatchewan. Prairies, really.

But for Osiris and Capital City, I'm writing it as a mix of Coruscant from STAR WARS and Toronto. River's reactions to seeing Capital City for the first time in years is the reaction I had when I saw Toronto for the first time. That there'd be hovercars making up a hanging grid and buildings that touch the cloud line, but it has subways, bars, bums, a warehouse district and buildings hundreds of years old. Sort of a mix of the fantastic with the familiar, like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Here's a question up for interpretation. In Objects in Space, Mal references New Melbourne as a planet whose main industry is fish. Now, do you think the planet would be like Australia, New England or the Maritimes. I know the name gives itself to Austrailian actors, but I think it would be more like Newfoundland, P.E.I, Nova Scotia and the Maritimes in Canada.

**************************************************
"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."

Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack

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Saturday, August 18, 2007 11:09 AM

WYTCHCROFT


very interesting post - liked your decriptions..

also:
Quote:

Originally posted by reginaroadie:


Here's a question up for interpretation. In Objects in Space, Mal references New Melbourne as a planet whose main industry is fish. Now, do you think the planet would be like Australia, New England or the Maritimes. I know the name gives itself to Austrailian actors, but I think it would be more like Newfoundland, P.E.I, Nova Scotia and the Maritimes in Canada.




ha ha! you never can tell - New Zealand is named after the Viking/Norweigan territory of zealand... and they are NOT alike.

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Sunday, August 19, 2007 11:40 AM

SCHOONER


New Melbourne could probably have all the above, assuming it's a decent size planet. Dominant Australian or Japanese-style urban culture on the largest tropical islands, rugged Alaskan/Maritime/Norwegian settlements around the polar masses, Polynesian or Caribbean cultures at the fringes of the settled areas. To maintain the Western feel, think of San Francisco in the 1850's to 1880's, or Nantucket a smidge earlier.

The 'fanon' explanation I'd heard for why all the planets look the same is that the planets on the Rim are mostly recently terraformed, and the century of less is not long enough for the ecosystems to grow together and produce jungles, forests and the like. By contrast, the Core planets have have centuries for their ecosystems to mature.

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Sunday, August 19, 2007 12:17 PM

NCBROWNCOAT


Since my fic is mainly set on Shadow here's how I envsion that planet. It's rolling plains, a lot like central Texas from Austin north to south of Dallas. The climate is moderate, warm summers and winters that are bearable.

It also has a broad corn and wheat growing capacity, much like the Great Plains of the US.

Small towns with the essential stores, banks etc. for a farming community.

I'll even offer up my own state of North Carolina as the planet (or moon) Carolina.

The coastal area has many barrier islands and inlets that are constantly changing.(fantastic for smuggling ). The coastal land is rich and is mainly used for farming with small towns sprinkled through out. There is also a substantail fishing industry (actually fishing is declining rapidly in favor of tourism development-it's about the last of the east coast to be developed).

The middle section is industrial and tech oriented and is booming with people moving in from other areas for jobs. This is where the prestigious universities are and it's a transportation crossroads, both land and air. What undeveloped land there is is wooded or the remains of small farms.

Then there are the sand hills near the central SC border. Scrub vegetation,woodland and heat. A large military base is located there (Ft. Bragg, home of the Special Forces and 82nd Airborne).

Then there are the mountains.(Great Smokies) Inhabited by hardy descendants of Scottish and Irish pioneers on small farms they are giving way to expensive retirement communities nestled in the valleys.

And this state stretches only 600 miles from end to end.

You can pack in a lot of diversity on one planet


http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/









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Sunday, August 19, 2007 1:52 PM

NCBROWNCOAT


I forgot to add that Carolina would be firmly in the Independent camp.

Weak state government, distrust of "Big" government and a multi million dollar sport crafted out of running away from the police with a load of illegal whiskey in the trunk.

That would be Nascar where top athletes handle gas cans and MIT trained engineers huddle over a car engine. And a "good ole boy" can make millions by pushing an accelerator.

Also, transplants (a nice name for "Damm Yankees") feel a compulsion after a few years here to buy a tremendous pickup truck, get a retriever (Goldens are more popular but Labradors have more "gun sense")and more than a few have put gun racks in the rear window.

It must be something in the air.

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Sunday, August 19, 2007 1:59 PM

WYTCHCROFT


great post!

quick question - 'firmly in the independant camp'
is there a timeline on that? i ask because i'm having to mentally redraw some of the maps and consider alliegances post BDM / post The Wave...


make someone a browncoat today - don't drive nobody away

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Sunday, August 19, 2007 2:24 PM

NCBROWNCOAT


I was just using the reality of my own state of North Carolina as an example of how diverse a Border planet could be. The state in general has a big independent streak and we still tend to go our own way on things.

The middle part of the state (high tech and industralized, lots of transplants from other places) is changing the political landscape of NC.

Traditionally NC is pretty conservative politically with small landowners and small business people very distrustful of power residing outside of the local area.

NC was one of the first states to declare for Independence during the Revolution and the 12th to ratify the US Constitution and only then after the Bill of Rights was added.

NC was also reluctant to join the Confederacy. There were few large plantations and most in the state at that time were small farmers with few or no slaves.

NC is big on patriotism though, with Ft. Bragg in Fayetteville and Camp LeJeune (USMC) in Jacksonville.

The thing is when patriotism and individual rights clash, individual rights usually win around here.

For example, the Navy wanted to build an Outlying Landing Field near a wildife sanctuary that's a stop on the Atlantic flyway for millions of migrating geese and swans. People in the Norfolk, VA area were complaining about the jet noise and the Navy said they needed a secluded spot with no ambient light to simulate air craft carrier landings.

A strange coalition of environmentalists, farmers whose land would have been taken (some in families for 100 years or more) and residents of small towns whose noise level would have been effected banded together and put tremendous pressure on state and national politicians. They literally made the Navy's life hell and were successful in preventing the funding of the OLF.

I hope this helps you in developing your time line after the BDM.

BTW I was an American Studies major in that "den of liberalism (LOL) known as Chapel Hill", at UNC and had took two fantastic courses in NC History there.








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Sunday, August 19, 2007 2:27 PM

WYTCHCROFT


thanks - and yes! interesting and helpful!

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Sunday, August 19, 2007 8:11 PM

TUJIAOZUO


Quote:


The 'fanon' explanation I'd heard for why all the planets look the same is that the planets on the Rim are mostly recently terraformed, and the century of less is not long enough for the ecosystems to grow together and produce jungles, forests and the like. By contrast, the Core planets have have centuries for their ecosystems to mature.


I have never heard that piece of fanon, but it makes such a wonderful explanation for the lack of flourishing ecosystems.

Also, could the rim planets be so sparse because they are farther away from the sun? (Scientifically they would frozen wastelands if they were too far away, or excruciatingly hot if too close, yet let's just humor that distance question as it is sci-fi)

*EDIT: NCBrowncoat, love your method with Shadow. Your description is very vivid, and I can picture it all in my head

Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash

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