I think I can use the “attractions” text to evoke something about the land and people. You commented favourably on the matter I drafted for Tau Ceti (“[t]hose are good items and the sort of thing that could stimulate a GM’s inventiveness.” — whswhs).
“Soap opera plots” might be “plots of vaudeville melodrama” and “story-teller’s stock plots” as appropriate to development level.
Or even “storylines in immersive virtual realities.”
“Plots of popular ballads”
I’ve read a number of things recently – most obviously the Murderbot Diaries – in which trashy entertainment finds an audience outside its target cultural niche. Offworld fans of As Tau Turns are going to be far less numerous than domestic ones, and probably the domestic ones think they’re a bit weird, but it feels like the sort of thing that happens when you drop messy humans into a setting.
According to a book on art history I copy edited some years ago, the ceramics industry in Athens sold more of its output to Etruscans than to Athenians.
Very probably, yes. I wouldn’t recommend it as a way of learning about real cultures (my wife is a fan of The Archers in a “hoping it’'ll get better some day” sort of way), but as a means of learning about the messages a culture wants to project into its members…
I also think a section on and of culturally significant story forms is a great idea. GMs can straight out mine these for framing of their own games, players can use them to shape their characters backstories and ambitions.
So the PCs might be pure greed fueled treasure hunters trying to recover an Old Earth artifact, but the locals see it all as an attempt to increase their status to get into a favourable lodge, because of course that’s what all young reckless freebooters are really after. Except, of course, for the PC who is looking to get into a good monastary.
There is a new draft at the same URL. It is fully three pages now, but the twelve-point type is generous, and most other colonies will be described more briefly.
How is it for scope?
How is it for format?
As a very minor note, I don’t think “terraformation” is a suitable word. I’ve never seen it, and I believe if it were used, it would mean the coming into being of Earth or an earthlike planet, not the transformation of a nonearthlike planet into an earthlike one. I would prefer “terraforming.”
I’ll change it, though I don’t agree that the process or action indicated by the suffix “-ation” has to be a spontaneous one. When I confront someone, that is confrontation. When I transport something, that is transportation. So if I terraformed something that would be terraformation. We say that I like confrontation, not that I like confronting (unless there is an object mentioned).
“Terraformation” appears in the titles of two books listed on Amazon that are about planetary engineering, not the natural formation of Earth. And one of them is by the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.
You’re writing for SF fans. SF fans know, correctly or not, that the word is “terraforming”. So by insisting on “terraformation” you’re annoying your audience for the sake of an arguable technical correctness.
More generally, the added material does seem to be a productive use of page space; it adds flavor to the setting. I think the soap opera plot is a good idea, and credits to Roger for suggesting it. It amuses me to see that it vaguely recalls the opening of Pride and Prejudice, featuring a single man with a good fortune. By all means, do likewise in other entries, though of course with variety of material; I won’t suggest a Homeric hymn (though a prose summary of one might do), but perhaps a riddle, or a gaming scenario, or something else whose literary form also testifies to its source culture . . .
I’m unsure about one line: The reference to the notable falls in central Avalon. I had been thinking of the eight divisions of the planet as geographic sectors defined by longitude and latitude, rather than as continents or other natural regions. But if that’s the case, then it seems odd to speak of “central Avalon” as a place with a landmark; it’s as if someone spoke of “central North Atlantica” (located about halfway between Morocco and Florida). I’d like to see this made clearer. Are the eight divisions orange slices, or octants, or landmasses that happen to be spaced evenly about the planet, or what?
Indeed. Thank you, @RogerBW
It amuses me to see that it vaguely recalls the opening of Pride and Prejudice , featuring a single man with a good fortune.
“Pemberley Park”, too. I did think of calling the central character “Mansfield”.
The situation described also recalls a British sitcom called To the Manor Born, but I don’t expect American readers to pick up on that.
By all means, do likewise in other entries, though of course with variety of material; I won’t suggest a Homeric hymn (though a prose summary of one might do), but perhaps a riddle, or a gaming scenario, or something else whose literary form also testifies to its source culture . . .
It’s all subject to being re-written after I have drafted all forty planets. When that happens allusions to Austen will probably get reassigned to another colony where the ruling anxieties feature marriages and inheritances — Beleriand, perhaps. Tau Ceti really wants references to Aksel Sandemose.
Thanks. I’ll fix it.
But I’m not insisting. I said that I was going to change it.
You might consider, at least for some worlds, posting the more prosaic descriptive passages, and then inviting people to suggest either matter or form for the narrative bits. It would give you more than one person’s invention to draw on. And I expect it would be fun for us. Not for every world, of course, but for the ones where your muse is silent.
There are at least three ways to noun a verb. You can precede it with “to,” as an infinitive; you can put an “-ing” on it, as a gerund; or you can put an “-ation” on it, as an abstract noun. Which one is used is partly a matter of convention, for which the “correct” usage is the one that is idiomatic or customary (just as the correct usage is “dependent on,” but “independent of,” for no very logical reason); but there is some slight semantic difference between the three also.
My comment about Central North Atlantica makes me wonder: What would we call the eight octants of Earth? I’m thinking perhaps North Atlantica, Brazilia, North Pacifica, South Pacifica, Eastasia, Australasia, Eurasia, and South Atlantica? (There’s not much of the South Atlantic in that sector, but there’s not much of Africa, either, and while there’s a lot of the Indian Ocean, I’m not sure how to form a name that wouldn’t suggest India, which actually is in Eurasia.)
The map of Earth illustrates the unevenness of land distribution: the sector I’m calling South Pacifica has no land except a slice of Antarctica and some archipelagos, whereas Eastasia might have more land than water.
Maybe octant it by population?