Through its development, the Alcioneverse has varied in realism as I tried to decide whether to go with Science Fantasy or Hard SF, and FTL or STL. On the sliding scale of hardness, I started around 7 (hard science with FTL and some weird elements), went down to 6 (Science Fantasy), and with the latest reboot it’s around 8 to 8.5 (exotic matter but no FTL).
After two and fro-ing for a while, from Hard Science Fantasy cross-over to pure Space Fantasy to pure Hard SF, I finally realised I couldn’t just have one postmodern space opera universes and one set of characters. The ambience of each is so different, due to the implications of the contrast between a STL (slower than light, hard SF) universe with its rigorous hard science and more limited handwavium, and FTL (faster than light, more conventional space opera) universe that combines hard science with pure fantasy, surrealism, satire, and magical realism, that I decided on two, even though both will share certain features, such as space punk, and adventure.
The two universes are described as follows:
Paraspacers (aka Freehauler Alcione – The Alcioneverse)
Space Fantasy Adventure
- Central protagonists: young adults coming of age in a scary but exciting universe, also older motley rogue traders
- genre: science fantasy
- secondary genres: biopunk, dystopia, magical realism, new weird, satire, space opera, young adult
- universe: theosophical / zonal, with gnostic and lovecraftian
- sliding scale of hardness: 6 to 7 (not counting the Fantasy/Weird)
- interstellar travel: FTL via jump points or merus, logic beacons in paraspace
- main ship: The Alcione, a negmass reactionless drive ship, slow acceleration (1 g), realtime guidance, length about a kilometer, hull armour several meters
- Ambience: Flawed World – Space punk
- Some influences: Chthulu Mythos, Star Wars, Traveller, Roadside Picnic/Stalker, Battletech/Mechwarrior, Schizmatrix, Firefly, A Fire Upon the Deep, Revelation Space/Galactic North, Terminal World, Orion’s Arm (Sephirotics), Rogue Trader (WH40k), Bel Dame, “Red Space” (Scorpio Rising), Boadicious Space Pirates, Symbiosis
Starsiders
Hard SF Spacepunk
- Central protagonists: misfit prospectors
- genre: hard science fiction
- secondary genres: space punk, postmodern space opera, space horror
- universe: physical universe, the galaxy
- sliding scale of hardness: 7 to 8
- interstellar travel: STL only, plus a few wormholes
- main ship: The Bathsheba, a conversion torchship, length about 300 meters. magnetoplasma shielding
- Ambience ( the sliding scale of bleakness): Punk/Gritty – Crapsack – Medium Grimdark (however this universe is not completely grimdark, because, first, and contrary to the ethos of the grimdark genre, moral actions do count, and second, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.)
- Some influences: Of Men and Monsters, Roadside Picnic/Stalker, Neuromancer, Firefly, The Matrix, Alien/Aliens, Orion’s Arm (tech), Revenger,
To do List
Now I’ve got my worldbuilding straightened out and the ambience decided on, I can back to writing. There will still be a lot more worldbuilding, but I’ll mostly wait until I’ve published something.
To do list includes:
- Finish Madverts (Book 1 of the Alcioneverse)
- Work out the crew of the Bathsheba (the classic ragtag band of motley misfit adventurers) for the Starsiders universe
- Once that’s done, work out opening story of Starsiders