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Ideas and Concepts.
Topic Started: Aug 17 2011, 03:32 PM (8,753 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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bloom_boi
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What The?
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Final Paradise though, is about a group of humans who decide to move onto the planet known as the Final Paradise, because it is one of the last sophont inhabited worlds whose enviroment has not been changed by industrialization.
"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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colddigger
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/1100-year-old-mayan-ruins-found-in-north-georgia/ So how about those Mayans moving NorthEast and settling and establishing an empire before the North American European colonies could be moved in?
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colddigger
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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How about an alien invasion story, it'd be like the classic War of the Worlds invasion of Great Britain or the old American alien movies where the United States is invaded, the aliens invade a specific country with the understanding of the other countries that if they do not interfere they will not be invaded too.
But the invaded country is able to thrash free of the invasion and became bitter against the rest of the world, and then it becomes a traditional war story.
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Jasonguppy
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I'm working on a set of novel/short storiesd with a primeval-ish atmosphere but teenagers.
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

The problem with half these ideas is that Ive seen very little amounts of information on characters.
what are the characters like? how do they develop? any story can become a masterpiece if you add in a great selection of interesting personalities.
I know some books survive on the merits of their themes or plot, and have little characterisation (All Quiet on the Western front and 1984 are both great books with protagonists who are not well defined (this actually works in favor of the books). But I think a lot of these concepts don't show much.
for example, people say they are working on a novel set in a alternate history setting, where these grand events and wars are at work and so on. But there is very little mention of the people, is the main character a civilian, a prisoner, a soldier, a leader ?, who knows? are there multiple main characters or just one? how is the information disclosed? can you see what Im saying? I think the setting is great, but I have no idea how it will be pulled off and whether or not this would be worth reading.
Edited by seascorpion, Jan 29 2012, 07:54 PM.
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dialforthedevil
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But I think the saying goes that for most of us Speccers our entire field is about the setting. In what we mainly do on this site characters are virtually non-existant. Whole species, whole worlds. That is what it is to be a Speccer.
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Russwallac
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Amen, brothah!
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bloom_boi
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I like developing characters....
And they are the hearts of literature, you should develop at least some even superficially.
"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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SIngemeister
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Hive Tyrant of the Essee Swarm

I'm currently struggling to remove my characters in Wide Spectrum from being so affected by the characters of Mass Effect. God damn BioWare for having similar ideas to me!
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Ànraich
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colddigger
Dec 22 2011, 04:08 PM
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/1100-year-old-mayan-ruins-found-in-north-georgia/ So how about those Mayans moving NorthEast and settling and establishing an empire before the North American European colonies could be moved in?
A few years ago I was working on an alternate history where a plague at the dawn of civilization wipes out most of the human population in Eurasia. Plenty of people survive, but the only civilizations left in the whole of the eastern hemisphere are Egypt and Japan. Most of human history in this timeline takes place between the civilizations of the Yucatan, Andes, and Mississippi River. Egypt will become more or less the Rome of this world, colonizing Greece and Italy instead of the Sinai and Palestine as they did OTL. It eventually collapses, but its colonies throughout Europe will develop into their own civilizations and cultures in time. Japan will colonize Korea and the coast of China, although by the time they start getting into mainland Asia new civilizations formed by Chinese survivors near the Yellow and Yangzi rivers will have gained too much influence to be conquered (ironically the Japanese will leave the Chinese states alone in return for tribute, turning the tables on the events of OTL).

I'm just not sure what to do with India in this scenario though. India is somewhat secluded but has historically been a place of heavy trade traffic from all over the known world. Even at the very dawn of civilization India was a melting pot of people hawking wares, so it wouldn't make sense that India survives in my mind. I really wouldn't mind if they survived, but I had an idea for India to be colonized by people from ancient Indonesia and Maylasia, maybe even Australian aborigines and founding their own civilization. But if they survive it would be visa versa, with India colonizing the Pacific and Southeast Asia. I don't know which way to go they both sound so good...
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Kamidio
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Implying the Norse, Muslims, and Mongols won't survive a plague.

The Muslims were a superpower in the medical field. They knew how to deal with a plague before the Christians did.

The Norse bathed weekly, less often than the Muslims, but still enough that they'd have a better chance than the Celts. They also have the advantage of living in the middle of a FROZEN HELL, which means that by extension the Russian and Sami peoples would survive. Not to mention that even if the plague got most of the Nords in Scandinavia, the Icelanders would be a-okay on their island.

The Mongolians are sort of 'meh' when it comes to disease due to living in and around a desert that's been there since the Cretaceous. Not to mention it was the Mongolians who invented the use of disease as a weapon, albeit in the Dark Ages during the Khan Dynasty.

The people of Nepal also seem like they have a fair chance, being perched on Nowhere Mountain.

So really, the only groups that would be hit hard would be the Celts(Insular, Gaulic, and Lusitanian), the southern Germanic tribes, like the Anglo-Saxons, the Greco-Romans, and the people of Central Eurasia, around the Urals.

EDIT: Oh, I feel so STUPID! How could I forget the Polynesians?

Yeah, they'd be awwwright too.
Edited by Kamidio, Feb 20 2012, 12:39 AM.
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Zoroaster
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Egypt under Ali Pasha (that Albanian dude who separated Egypt from the Ottomans) was only second to England in Industrial enterprises etc. Egypt was wrecked by the British to stop them being a commercial power in the region. So a super-power Egypt is not that unbelievable.

Fakey - Iceland? It wasn't settled until some time in the 900s...

What time period are we talking about here Parasky?
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I was thinking of an alternative history idea where Jefferson Davis trumps Lincoln and frees the slaves before the Emancipation Proclamation (pretty unlikely I know) - then cosies up to the English (Gladstone and Queen Vic) and forms an alliance with them. This scenario relies on England's other sources of cotton drying up due to a drought in India and where-ever they sourced cotton from during the American Civil war.

Robert E. Lee listens to Longstreet's advice NOT to attack the centre of General Meade's formation, and tries a hugely successful lightning out-flanking manouvre on Meade's right flank. There is no "Pickett's Charge".

Effectively, the war becomes a stalemate, like the war of 1812 and subsequent border clashes between USA and the British in Canada. Eventually treaties result in the Southern states, except for Virginia, becoming "South Canada"... Virginia (North and South) becomes the Republic of Virginia.

In this story, Fakey's state is part of Canada! Fakey - YOU ARE A CANOOK!

Britain cedes New Mexico and California and Texas back to Spain.

Spain uses its base there to re-conquer Mexico, along with their French allies. France and England are pretty cosy by now, despite the British detestation of Napoleon III. Britain cedes Louisiana back to the French.

France learns the value of rail networks to transport troops and materiel to the battle-field during this conflict, and end up defeating the Prussians at Sedan in 1871. Alsace-Lorrain remains in French hands, plus they gain possession of the Ruhr, and proceed to Frankify it.

No World War 1, or its bastard child World War 2.

And on-going war in the Pacific is the result as the Japanese tear up their trade treaty forced on them by Admiral Perry. Japan rapidly modernises, and allies herself with France and England. Japan annexes Taiwan, Korea, Hawaii and the Phillipines.

1865 to 1885, many of the former US ex-slaves are repatriated to Africa, but sponsored in a paternalistic way by the South Canadian administration, with assistance from the British (they're given much more support than the repatriated slaves of Liberia were in OTL). Many are "banished" to the Northern States of America (there's nothing pretty about this scenario, there are still lynchings, and Jefferson Davis' Emancipation Proclamation was a phased in enfranchisement [much like the English did in Jamaica]). The former Southern States begin recruiting for labour in a devastated Germany. Immigrant Germans become the underclass of South Canada, disliked intensely. They're essentially indentured labour, they have to pay for their upkeep and the cost of their emigration from Germany.

Much much later? There is still a Spanish Civil War in 1936, which escalates to the American continent.

Fascism rises in Spain and Italy and Greece and The Kingdom of the Serbs and Croatians. With a weakened Germany, the Poles rise up and re-unite the partitioned Poland, fascism rises here too.

Despotic autocratic monarchies persist in Russia and Turkey.

The Russian autocracy of the Tsars is doomed, however the Sick Old Man of Europe (i.e. Turkey) is re-juvenated and maintains a "status quo" in Anatolia and throughout much of the Middle East.

There is no holocaust visited on the Jews (altho the Tsars continue a policy of state sponsored propaganda to foment hatred of Jews which results in cycles of pogroms in the Ukraine and the "pale"). No holocaust, Turks hold onto Palestine, there is no Israel.

That's all I've got so far.

I should also point out - that the Southern States were not that valuable to the heavily industrialised North. A smaller United States still prospers and grows to become a World Superpower - but a more "isolationist" one.

Edited by Zoroaster, Feb 20 2012, 01:48 AM.
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Ànraich
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Fakey
Feb 20 2012, 12:36 AM
Implying the Norse, Muslims, and Mongols won't survive a plague.
Well no, they wouldn't. Because they didn't exist at the dawn of civilization. This is pre-unified Egypt era I'm talking here, a time back when the city of Ur was new and shiny. This is before even Babylon itself was built. This idea of mine is a true alternate history, I'm rewriting all of human history.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

Except for the vast majority of history that occurred before the invention of writing.
But anyway, I like Parasky's idea. I think that as far as plotlines (would this be one novel or more?) in that timeline, I think your best bets are the collapse of the Egyptian empire in Europe or possibly the rise of an 'unexpected empire' or something like that (eg the Mongol empire is an example in our timeline). For example you could talk about the rise of an Indian-area tribe or nation rising to power under the leadership of a charismatic figure, or though I would prefer an empire originating from near the Caspian sea or possibly from Indochina. Though thats just my idea
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colddigger
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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chimpanzee empire.
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