I've had an idea for another scifi universe (besides Faction) for a while now. Couple months at least. Prolly been longer. I know I started thinking about it before I was done sketching the second issue of Katy comic. What kicked it off was just an image I had of mithra-style Timothius wearing some scifi outfit and sitting in a subway train waiting to reach his destination. But I have since gotten a few ideas / inspirations for it since.

Nothing about it is concrete other than I wanna have scifi that can emphasize the vastness of space (one of the reasons I considered expanding the territory in the Faction universe to include inter-galactic travel).

Thoughts:
-Have something to show a generational gap between each generation
--thoughts on this include how people dress. Older people will probably wear retro-scifi stuff while younger will wear the sleeker style (like tron tights), and younger still (like little kids) will be forming new styles (perhaps something more stylistic like a mix of Star Trek uniforms and renaissance). Maybe even have the outfits reversed (sleek was old gen, retro is new gen).
--Along the generation gap lines, have technology advancing too fast to even bother going to school for it anymore, so people have "upgrade classes" which are transferred to the brain via some brainwave headband.
-Maybe all the alien races originate from Earth (any furry races are descendant from genetic alteration). If I go with evolutionary origin, the various near-human looking races simply evolved over the past couple hundred thousand / million years?*
-Maybe have a dozen or so ACTUAL aliens (never originated from Earth), but aliens and Earthlings alike have dozens of sentient species who offshoot from their respective original race (example: Timothius is a sentient bipedal cat, but trace back his ancestry far enough and you find only humans).
-Both of the origins of species can easily support the likes of the Grenu. Maybe an Earth canine species evolved into a sentient creature at last (dogs are already pretty smart).

*As indicated earlier in asterisk land, I am unsure whether I want to use evolution as a literary device or not. I don't believe in it, but it does have a lot of potential for fiction. On the other hand, if I go with it, I have to accept the whole "you obviously believe in evolution" assumption that people will make about me if I go with that.

  For some reason I never hear anyone considering "Hey, Maybe God's smart enough to create a self sustaining ecosystem and Evolution if he's smart enough to make molecules."  But then that's an option that isn't One Side Is Completly Right And The Other Is A Dumbface.

  If you want to sidestep the Evolution Offhoot thing various Sci-Fi does, you could used the designer genetics offshoot others use  (Doesn't count, Evolution!  People played with the settings!).  I won't bother getting into the age old "If there are Aliens then-" when it comes to Gods that hate competition so much they wrote down "don't worship my competition" on the big list.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:56, Tue 02 July 2013.

On a purely basic level, "Evolution" and "Creation" agree on the foundational concept of "X made itself" and disagree on the mechanics of it.  Both agree that the universe is full of order (AKA information), especially Earth.  Creationists say, "God was always there.  Was full of of order/information.  BANG!  Imbued that order/information upon his creation."  Evolutionists say, "The stuff of the universe was always there.  BANG!  Started with lots of chaos, but the laws of physics kinda sorted things out (aka, imbued order/information upon the stuff of the universe.)"  So in essence, both agree that the world we live in today was built into the pre-existent machine since forever.

I'd be curious to see a take on the universe that's totally different.  Pre-existence and all that seems unavoidable, but I'm waiting to see someone come up with a totally different mechanic for how we came upon the universe today.  Granted, that'd be the stuff of a PHD thesis, but could also be the stuff of a gradeschool kid's creativity.

That said, it's entirely unnecessary to overtly present the origin of species in any given sci-fi.  Most focus on the here-and-now.  At least, as seen from the point of view of the characters.  They tend to not fuss over the mechanics of how Vulcans evolved pointed ears to deal with the heavy rain on their planet weighing down their formerly round ears.  Or how giant slugs somehow wound up on the top of the economic pecking order.  They just... are.  And the story flows just fine without getting too bogged down with debates over what the author believes about RL origins.

Edit: Tim corrected me that Star Trek is a poor example of a fiction that doesn't cram it's RL worldview down the viewer's throat.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:14, Tue 02 July 2013.

In wondering what kinds of things really can only happen in scifi, I found some things

1) Artificial Life - aka sentient robots. Characters like Data in Star Trek, who are machines, but looking for meaning and emotion. Chris objected that Warforged in D&D fit this mold, but I argue it is scifi first and Warforged were basically Keith Baker's way of putting "robots" into D&D. Even now, I look at Warforged and only see scifi being forced in fantasy. Sure it's possible in fantasy, but it feels more scifi to me regardless. And what is scifi? Replacing magic with technology and getting the same effects. What is fantasy? Replacing technology with magic and getting the same effects. Some things, however, simply feel more scifi while others feel more fantasy. Sorry, but robots, sentient or otherwise, are simply WAY more scifi for me than fantasy.

2) Artificial Births - Artificial insemination, test tube babies, and surrogate mothers; If these things have been done in fantasy, I can't recall. Would definitely be something to bring up a Sneetches scenario.

3) Artificial Reality - Living inside a waking dream has been done in fantasy and even modern-day settings. Virtual reality for its own sake and as an entertainment venue, however, has mostly been scifi (such as .hack//Sign). Being addicted to the fake seems to be a theme used more than a few times in scifi.

4) Space Travel - And once again, D&D has done this and who-knows what other fantasy stories may have done "space ships in fantasy", but let's face it... whether you slap fantasy on the title or not, seeing a vehicle move around among the stars immediately invokes "scifi" in our minds, right? So what's the major thing about space travel that could cause story that couldn't happen with any other travel? The fact most scifi nerds agree on warp being the tech that permits space travel and, therefor, you could wind up in serious danger from such things. Babylon 5 made extensive use of this. Cowboy Beebop used it and added a spiritual element via the Feng shui.

(More to come later)