World-Building
When I began writing sci-fi I was overwhelmed at the amount of research necessary just to put together a plausible story. Unlike other areas of speculative fiction, the universe needs to resemble the one we know today. For someone with a less than optimal knowledge of the hard sciences, this was daunting.
My educational background is in political science, history, government, philosophy, economics, and law. I took some courses in the physical and life sciences but didn’t do particularly well. This left me in a tough position when it came to writing about the 22nd century, space travel, theoretical physics, molecular biology, terraforming, and hydroponic farming. For The Fifth World, I had to research all these subjects.
For the sequel, several more topics came up. Along with everything above, I had to go a step further with vehicle propulsion, communications, ecology, climatology, and geology. It was necessary to build a more complete picture of Gaia. All of these areas are important when engaging in world-building.
I found three books that were extremely helpful. The first was Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds by Martin Beech. It gives the basics of planets, their formation, their attributes, and what is necessary for them to spawn life. Later he goes into detailed proposals on how to terraform planets like Mars and Venus. Some of it is tough reading but it was extremely helpful.
Some of it is ideas based on current technology and other methods are based on what might be possible in the future. Some of it was really interesting, other ideas were just crazy.
Another good aid was World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett. It was for more sophisticated readers (those with at least a bachelor’s degree in mathematics or physics) so it wasn’t as accessible. Still it provided a lot of good information.
The big challenge for me in understanding planets is the influence of gravity. Not only its
own gravity but the influence of other celestial bodies such as moons, other planets in the star system, and of course the star itself. I try to imagine it like a blanket with each planet or star laying on top and weighing down on it. The funnel-like depression it forms from the weight pulling on the blanket is its gravity well. It’s not perfect but that’s been the best way I’ve figured out to imagine its impact.
Another challenge is the dynamics of a planet’s mass, geological activity, albedo, orbital eccentricity, obliquity, distance from the sun, and atmospheric composition. All of these influence a planet’s climate and potential for life. It is one big interconnected system that is difficult to keep straight in your head.
Finally, when trying to create alien life forms, Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schmidt is fascinating.
It lays out some basics of planetary conditions and attributes but then goes into the specifics of biology. For someone with a limited background in life sciences, this was extremely helpful. Of the three, this book is the most accessible for a layperson.
Overall I learned that there a more rules or physical laws that limit what is possible on an alien world. You can’t just throw five or six random planetary attributes together and hope it is plausible. This is largely what Star Trek and other early sci-fi works did. I am not criticizing. After all, much of what we know about the universe has come in the last forty to fifty years. At the same time, theory doesn’t really stifle the imagination too much. There are still countless possibilities for alien worlds. I guess a good way to say it is, instead of “everything is possible” it is more like “many things are possible.”
We should also be cautious about the information in these books. Much of it is based on theory and mathematical equations. In other words we think the universe behaves like this.
For other sci-fi writers, I highly recommend these three books. For regular readers, I recommend the Aliens and Alien Societies.
Jacob
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