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Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web.

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Ideas and Concepts.
Topic Started: Aug 17 2011, 03:32 PM (8,757 Views)
lamna
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We all have cool ideas for things we'd love to do or make, art, novels, films and so on. But unless you actually have something to show us such as concept art or a first draft I think you should discuss it here so we don't have dozens of topics of people talking about their cool ideas.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Russwallac
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What ARE the Speculative Evolution Territories?
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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colddigger
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So I'm writing my daemon story for NaNoWriMo and then this comes up http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/uol-bpd110411.php which made me giddy.
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lamna
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So your demons are biological.

How is this for a setting?

The US got into a nasty war with China back in '07 and fell apart for a bit. Lots of people had to fend for themselves, what with all the cults and the Chicano nationalists and the plain old bandits and warlords. People couldn't wait forever for the USA to get its shit together, and that's how the Second Republic of Texas was born and Army of the Republic of Texas along with it.

Did a lot of good work, reminded the Mexicans which side of the border was theirs, helped rebuild the whole region. Then in 2018 the President decides he'd rather be a governor and rejoins the USA and disbands the army. For a while people drifted, some joined the US military others settled down, or tried to.

Then in 2019 things go to hell in Asia and that's when Major Jones gets an idea. So she founds Definitive Results, a private security firm, and starts recruiting people who fought in the Texan Army and ships Laos where they helped push the Lao People's Revolutionary Party far to the south. Probably would have crushed them too if the UN hadn't mediated a cease-fire.

For the next ten years Definitive Results travelled the world, from shithole to shithole. Yemen, Zimbabwe, Benin, Somalia, until here I am in Bougainville trying to fight thousands of North Korean soldiers with equipment for bringing down tinpot dictators.
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bloom_boi
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Russwallac
Nov 2 2011, 02:28 PM
What ARE the Speculative Evolution Territories?
The horrible spawn of our deformed imagination.
"You shall perish, whatever you do! If you are taken with arms in your hands, death! If you beg for mercy, death! Whichever way you turn, right, left, back, forward, up, down, death! You are not merely outside the law, you are outside humanity. Neither age nor sex shall save you and yours. You shall die, but first you shall taste the agony of your wife, your sister, your sons and daughters, even those in the cradle! Before your eyes the wounded man shall be taken out of the ambulance and hacked with bayonets or knocked down with the butt end of a rifle. He shall be dragged living by his broken leg or bleeding arm and flung like a suffering, groaning bundle of refuse into the gutter. Death! Death! Death!"



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Kamidio
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Russwallac
Nov 2 2011, 02:28 PM
What ARE the Speculative Evolution Territories?
An abortion.
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Russwallac
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"Ta-da!"
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Seriously though... Gimme a link or somethin'... <_<
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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lamna
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Can someone think of a problem with this? In a SF world the Terran Empire and the Republic* of Askar warred on and off for decades. The last batch of hostilities ended with both sides developing new weapons which would have destroyed each other. The Terrans got a whole suite of new naval weapons. They could fire more missiles, more accurately and from further away than the Askari. They had developed a bioweapon that was airborne, incredibly tough, that evolved rapidly and had a near 100% mortality rate for humans.

The Askari could wipe out all human colonies if they could get at least one missile though, with was more than likely. However if they did this the remaining Terran forces could wipe out the Askari navy and exterminate them from high orbit the old fashioned way. Terra had a slight edge but any victory would be Pyrrhic at best, so both sides agrees to a truce and then peace.

Can anyone see any holes in this scenario?

*Their name for the state is closer to Peopledom, but that sounds silly.
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Kamidio
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Can't say I do. Considering it sounds like the Cold War.
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What if the Terrans found a cure? Then surely the aliens would be doomed?
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lamna
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After the war? No, really not. By then the Askari would have caught up in naval technology, and the momentum would have been lost. It was a messy war, starting it up again would not be popular, or a good idea.

Also does anyone know where I can get lots of good info about Maine?

I really want to write a story where after a nuclear war really disrupts the USA and the people of Maine have to decide their future. They are Americans after all, but USA got them into this mess and does not seem to care about their problems. Maine's distance from China made them a low priority target. Not much there to destroy and its too far away to hit reliably anyway.
The USA is not uncaring, but every state capital west of the Mississippi is just gone, much of the corn belt is contaminated, Alaska is still occupied by the Chinese and it seems anyone not quite crazy enough to eat their own shit is creating their own little nations and cults.

Then their is Canada to consider, who quickly moved in while the USA was busy elsewhere. It is the Canadian army and RCMP that are supplying the Maine Army National Guard and helping preserve order. However there are their responsibilities to America, they are one of a very small number of states in the Union to still be functioning and there is the fact that Canada might not want piss off the nation that just got into a nuclear war by taking one of their states.

Or they could try and go it alone in an increasingly hostile world.
Edited by lamna, Nov 20 2011, 05:33 PM.
Living Fossils

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Kamidio
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lamna
Nov 20 2011, 04:03 PM
I really want to write a story where after a nuclear war really disrupts the USA and the people of Maine have to decide their future. They are Americans after all, but USA got them into this mess and does not seem to care about their problems. Maine's distance from China made them a low priority target. Not much there to destroy and its too far away to hit reliably anyway.
The USA is not uncaring, but every state capital west of the Mississippi is just gone, much of the corn belt is contaminated, Alaska is still occupied by the Chinese and it seems anyone not quite crazy enough to eat their own shit is creating their own little nations and cults.

Then their is Canada to consider, who quickly moved in while the USA was busy elsewhere. It is the Canadian army and RCMP that are supplying the Maine Army National Guard and helping preserve order. However there are their responsibilities to America, they are one of a very small number of states in the Union to still be functioning and there is the fact that Canada might not want piss off the nation that just got into a nuclear war by taking one of their states.

Or they could try and go it alone in an increasingly hostile world.
You're doing that annoying thing you do again. Stop it. Almost every world you make somehow pulls some Dues Ex Machina bullshit in order to demilitarize and break apart the U.S. Stop being butthurt over some thing that didn't happen to you, personally. Nevermind the fact that it happened like 240 years ago. The British Empire has fallen. Stop making those alternate hisories. It gets old.


SEriously, I get sick of it. Make an alternate history where the Khan Empire didnt completely fuck up Bahgdad. Make one where the Bolshevik revolution failed. Hell, make one where Australia fights for independance and wins.

YOu act like the British Empire needs empowering when it fell for a reason.
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Canis Lupis
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Fakey, you do realize that he is talking about a future history, right? A future where, assuming the Chinese do come to rival the U.S. on the world stage, use nuclear weapons against us (I assume the U.S. does the same to them). It seems like a likely scenario, other than the fact that any sane person would do his best to avoid nuclear war.

But Fakey, so what if he has a particular alternate history scenario he likes to fantasize about? Personally, I would love to live in an alternate history timeline where the American Revolution was just a rebellion that ended shortly after the Declaration of Independence was signed. I would love to see the ramifications of that world. I would love to see what a continued British dominance of America would do for slavery, Native American rights, and the numerous European wars. Would America, under British rule, be pulled into the Napoleonic Wars? Would it be pulled into WW1 and WW2 sooner? Could there potentially be another American Rebellion in the 1830s (or whenever) when Britain releases America's slaves?

Heck, terrible as it would be, I would also love to live in a world where the Nazis won WW2. Whether that means they took over America (like in most nightmare scenarios) or just dominated Europe (like in Fatherland, which to my limited knowledge on the subject seems more likely to me) doesn't make all that much of a difference. I would still love to live in that timeline.

But back to my main point. Everyone has their personal favorite alternate history scenarios. lamna may have an affinity for alternate American Revolutions (among other things, I'm sure. He's a history buff; I'm sure he has more eras of history he greatly enjoys).

I personally have an affinity for alternate Roman history (such as "What if Carthage had conquered Rome in the Second Punic Wars?" or "What if Spartacus's slave rebellion had been a success?" or "What if Judas Iscariot became a huge prophet in Israel around 30 A.D. and Jesus Christ faded into relative obscurity?").

I'm sure, Fakey, that you have alternate history scenarios you are quite fond of. We've all got our own tastes and it doesn't matter what those tastes are, so long as the stories that result from those tastes are interesting.
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Kamidio
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Yes, but if you notice, almost all of his alt history scenarios sum up to "The U.S. was never formed/nuked to hell/broken apart/sent to the moon and the British Empire lived happily ever after. The End!"

Seriously, I have no one favorite part of history. I have as much favour for making an alternate history where Benedict Arnold didn't get treated like shit by the militia, so he never turned to the Redcoats, as I would for an alternate history where Pope Gergory never made that damn calander. Or where Serbia had all of the blame pinned on it for causing WWI, rather than Germany. It wouldn't kill him to get a little variety in what the resulting world looks like, though I think he may somehow wind up screwing the U.S. over in the Benedict Arnold one, which'll probably involve some contrived thing like Arnold tripping on a rock and accidentally shooting* Jefferson and Franklin.

*Implying they died.

I'd love to see him get out of his box, instead of having everything somehow involve the U.S. Here's something Lamna might not get. We don't meddle in other countries' affairs as much as we're made out to be. So far the worst I've seen are spies stationed in the Nordic lands, and a couple of guys from the U.S. showing up at Eurovision*.

*BTW Lamna, I heard Britain lost again. U MAD?
Edited by Kamidio, Nov 21 2011, 02:23 AM.
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lamna
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I'm surprised you're not more offended about the way I treat Russia. They are the ones who usually get a nasty government or split into a dozen little puppet states.

And its not quite a future history, the big change is back in 2007 with little ones going back to the 70's. And it starts after a short conventional war when someone nukes a small Chinese city with a submarine.

My last two projects involve USA's just as strong as real life, I've mostly moved on from Revolution centred work to more modern things.

And I don't give a tiny little rats ass about how we do in a talent show.
Edited by lamna, Nov 21 2011, 03:46 AM.
Living Fossils

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Kamidio
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Pffft, I won't care about Russia until I make friend from there.

Linkies to the last two?


Yeah, U MAD.
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