World Building...It's a Process! · 1:46am Oct 19th, 2014
I'll be the first to say as deep as this project is becoming in my mind, I'm enjoying it! So much so, I want to share just a hint of what's to come. While I'm developing Celestia's POV, I've found the world for this particular universe is shaping up nicely. It's like picturing humanity pushing for the New World all over again, seeking their identities in a world that already has one (if that makes sense).
Still...let's put this little snippet into perspective. This is Earl L. Gray, the little brother mentioned of the guy who spoke about the Rift and Celestia in the days of his boyhood. I wrote this while trying to figure out Celestia's take on everything and wording it in a way a mother might tell a story to a child at bedtime.
I came up with this rambling...
Earl Lee Gray felt he was too young to get married. He was eighteen, for crying out loud! With the human population so low, it had come down to arranged marriages through mixing bloodlines to promote genetic diversity. Earl thought the ponies were meddling with human affairs. They had a say in everything, what with the most concentrated human settlements confined on Equestrian soil.
An itch had lodged itself in the back of his mind and Earl and marriage would not let him scratch it. There was a whole, new world out there few humans had explored. Well, to be fair, a lot of men and women had gone abroad, but only a few had come back to tell their tale.
He wanted to be out there. Not here. Oh, Ada was nice and very pretty. Maybe even too pretty. Indian girls were exotic. Earl felt certain things he wasn’t ready for. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Boys were required to follow a physical regimen, as were the girls. Physical fitness and education was important, mostly because most of the other sentient inhabitants on Equus were on average a lot stronger than the average human being.
Earl celebrated his third birthday on Earth. Then the volcanos blew up, the ponies made the Rift, and saved as many humans as they could while it stayed stable. He turned four in the house of a pony herd as his mother and father, older brother and sisters became sponsored. The young man did not remember the quarantine dome where he spent his first six months in Equestria. At least, not very well. He remembered getting the shots. Earl remembered getting very sick. Later, when he was older, he discovered it was a new sort of virus that had simply overran the inoculations and wiped out half of the children under the age of twelve. It scarred some of the survivors. Earl’s own scars marred his back and legs where the virus had ruptured through his skin and flesh. A sort of plague, like the Black Death. A third of the adults were lost to it.
What I want to try and convey is the crossing from Earth to Equus was not without growing pains. You can prepare for things as you envision them, but even the unexpected things are unavoidable. This is from my notes, so bear with me.
All sounds pretty good to me.
And assuming that your profile picture is a picture of your face, nice beard, bro. I wish I could grow something other than this nasty neckbeard.
"World building its a process" no shit, but it is also very rewarding when it is all said and done. They fact that you are putting that much effort into it should be applauded.
The issue with diseases isn't something normally brought up with these types of fics.
2542178 'Tis me. Neckbeards are too itchy.
2542195 It was the first thing to occur to me. Smallpox did a number on Native Americans when the Europeans meshed with them. Heck, it's estimated the Black Plague (possibly Ebola) wiped out a third to a half of Europe's population in the Dark Ages. It would make logical sense what diseases humans carry might mutate in a new world and visa versa with pony diseases.
2542305
First off the Black Death is a completely different disease from Ebola, in fact it's bacterial as opposed to viral.
Just remember Equestria is a completely different world so it may be difficult for there to be transmission between the species. In one of my favorite book series touches on it with native bacteria and viruses mutating and going either after the colonists or their crops. So not impossible but difficult
2542330 They're eerily similar.
Here's my reasoning with the research I've done. Scientists are starting to think it wasn't the Buebonic plague, but Ebola.
Here's three links. First one. Second one. Third one.
I was curious and looked into the similarities and found those sources. It blew me away.
2542351
Right now I will take anything report that Ebola caused the Black Death with a grain of salt considering its a hot topic issues right now and if the reports are coming form news sites and not academic journals.
And there are other diseases that cause similar symptoms
2542364 Indeed there are! I don't think our experts know as much about some of old outbreaks as they think. There's always some sort of 'huh?' moment coming from them.
Still, it makes for plenty of stuff to write about and make stories more in depth and organic. In a way, all stories are glorified opinions, but they do need some facts to make them feel as though they can put the reader in them. I'm still learning how to do that.
It's fun! I really enjoy it, even though I do stumble a lot (making questionable ocs bordering on Gary Stus and following common tropes...you get the idea).
I want to make a quality story people will enjoy. It won't appeal to everyone, but I want to be able to read it again years down the road and say to myself, "This is the best damn book I've ever read."
2542377
Uh... no, we are pretty sure Yersinia pestis, aka the Plague, cause it. We have DNA evidence from the bodies and the propagation routes really don't work for a virus that would have been from Central Africa.
Main thing is to do your research, bookmark wikis, and read a lot.
2542394 I'll check it out. Thanks!
2542396
You do that now.
Still man worldbuilding takes time and is an on going process. I've been building my Equestria since I started watching the series back in 2012 and I am still adding and changing things as new bits of canon comes out.
can't wait... ohh wait... i don't have to wait
RIL is an issue in the way of reading... need to find time
I am intrigued and wish to know more.
And while I'm not likely to actually put it to paper, so to speak, figured you'd like to hear an idea I was tossing around in my head about a human that lost everyone he knew, friends and family, to the cataclysm on earth, didn't even try for passage to Equus, helped some ponies being assaulted while taking serious injury himself, wakes on Equus wishing they'd left him. Proceed to follow someone finding a new place after losing one, including a phobia of sorts about being near humans developing. Closing with reconnecting, recovering, and finding love with a pony.
Anyone is welcome to the suggestion. I'm not writing anything not part of my own current project.
Another thing though...what will you dub the verse you've created. Sun-verse? When-verse? When the sun comes-verse seems too long. Perhaps SunCome-verse?