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Danassos: Some Deep Back-Story

Danassos: Some Deep Back-Story

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Just a quick post today, to share a piece of world-building I did a few years back. I was in the process of teaching myself map-making techniques in Photoshop and Inkscape, and dipped into my old notes on the Danassos setting to produce a map. Here’s a copy of the result:

That’s a pretty big file, so you may want to download it, or visit the pertinent page on DeviantArt.

(Yes, if you look closely at the map, you’ll see Atlantis. Thera, of course.)

The idea here is to trace the origins and eventual destiny of the so-called “Minoan” civilization, in the Danassos alternate history.

I’m assuming that the Minoans were originally Luwian people from southwestern Asia Minor, related to the Karian and Lykian peoples who lived there in historical times. About 3000 BCE some of them migrated into the Aegean and settled on Crete, forming the basis for Minoan culture. That would make the Minoan civilization an early outpost of the Indo-European language group, since the Luwian languages were part of the (very archaic) Anatolian branch of that family.

Centuries later, another branch of the Indo-European family made an appearance to the north, proto-Greeks migrating down into what we now think of as Thessaly. These people began as warlike nomads, using horses and primitive chariots to achieve military superiority over the pre-Greek peoples of the region. Eventually, they filtered further south, took over the small palace-states of the southern peninsula, and came into contact with the more sophisticated Minoans. The result was the Mycenaean culture, the first iteration of Greek civilization and the basis for all the later heroic myths.

All of that is entirely historical, of course. The first big divergence from our familiar history comes about 1450 BCE, when Mycenaean adventurers and warlords began to take over the Minoan palace-states on Crete. That sets up several decades of conflict, at the end of which the mainland Greeks invade and sack Crete, bringing Minoan culture to a bloody end. I’m assuming that the Minoans had long known about the existence of Italy and Sicily to the west; the major point of divergence is that some Minoan survivors escape the sack and set up the refugee colony in Sicily that later becomes the city of Danassos.

A note on dates: the calendar system I’m using is called Etos Kosmou or “era of the world.” (The Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church once used similar nomenclature for their calendars.) The epoch is the vernal equinox in the year 3058 BCE by our reckoning. Dates BCE can therefore be roughly determined by subtracting the EK date from 3058, and vice versa.

The idea here is that the ancient Minoans were aware of the procession of the equinoxes, and had the mathematical sophistication needed to estimate the position of the sun at the vernal equinox at various points in the past. This is all rampant speculation, of course – we have not a scrap of solid evidence for Minoan astronomy. However, it’s an interesting coincidence that right about the time the Minoan culture was established (circa 3000 BCE) the position of the equinox was in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull), not far from the bright star Aldebaran (the Bull’s “heart”).

We have evidence that the constellation of Taurus has been seen as a Bull since very ancient times. In fact, the Minoans were among the ancient cultures who maintained bull-cults and saw bulls as sacred creatures. I have to wonder if there wasn’t a certain amount of astronomical lore behind those cults. Maybe, maybe not – it’s not as if bulls aren’t impressive and dangerous creatures that any ancient culture might find worthy of worship.

Regardless, it struck me as a neat idea that the Minoans might have believed that at the moment of the world’s creation, the sun was at the vernal equinox and in the heart of the constellation of the Bull. I applied some astronomical software to estimate the point at which the sun would have been closest to Aldebaran at the vernal equinox, and that gave me an epoch of 3058 BCE. All of the notes I’ve gathered about the Danassos setting in the last few years, therefore, have used this version of the Etos Kosmou reckoning.

Khedai Hegemony Reference Map Complete

Khedai Hegemony Reference Map Complete

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Well, this map stretched my technique a little further than before, but after quite a bit of research and development, and a couple dozen hours of painstaking Photoshop work, it’s done. I now have a reference map for the galactic neighborhood of the Khedai Hegemony, covering a decent chunk of the Orion Spur in the process.

Here’s a thumbnail for the new map:

As before, this is a pretty hefty file, so you might do well to download it and view it locally. Alternatively, here’s a link to the pertinent page in my DeviantArt gallery.

This was world-building with a purpose! Not only did this exercise give me a new reference map for our galactic neighborhood, on a larger scale than I had ever done before, but it drove me to build a definitive model for interstellar cultures that I can continue to use later. I also came up with at least a high-concept description for over a dozen alien civilizations that I can now use in my stories.

In fact, once I get my notes collated and write down all the conceptual material that’s floating around in my head, I may have the basis for a fairly complete world-book for GURPS or some similar tabletop game. Between this map and the previous one, I have capsule descriptions for dozens of star systems, and by the time I’ve fleshed out all sixteen or so cultures I’ll have plenty of alien character templates. I may need to confer with the folks at Steve Jackson Games and see what the current limits are for publishing anything using GURPS language. It’s been a while since I was on their editorial staff, so their policies may have changed. At the very least, I ought to be able to post all of the pertinent material to the web for free.

Short term goal, though, is to buckle down and produce a publishable version of the novella In the House of War. With this map, I now have a much better idea where everything is, and what sort of aliens Aminata is likely to encounter during her first ventures out into the galaxy.

Real progress. Feels good.

Human Destiny Reference Map Complete!

Human Destiny Reference Map Complete!

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Okay, after several weeks of effort, I’ve finished my project to use the Architect of Worlds design sequence and place habitable worlds throughout the “solar neighborhood.” I’ve also finished producing a map of the region, based on those data.

The Human Destiny setting ended up with 28 more-or-less habitable worlds, and two colonized star systems without habitable worlds, in that ten-parsec radius from Sol. That’s out of roughly 328 stars that make up 265 star systems, indicating an average of one habitable planet for every nine or ten star systems. A bit more than I expected when I got started, but it’s a figure I can work with.

Here’s a thumbnail for the final draft map:

It’s a pretty huge file, so you might do better to download it and view it locally. Alternatively, here’s a link to the map’s page in my DeviantArt gallery.

At this point, I have a couple of things to publish here over the next few days. One is a review of the large-scale galactic situation in the Human Destiny setting (how common interstellar civilizations are, how they are likely to be structured and so on). Now that I have a plausible count of Earth-like worlds, I can finish those notes.

It also occurs to me that I now have a list of interesting worlds from the new map – I should draw up some capsule descriptions for those. I seem to be converging toward being able to publish a mini-worldbook in GURPS terms for this setting.

More long-term projects: now that I’ve given the Architect of Worlds system a thorough test drive, I need to go ahead and polish up and upload the working draft of the planetary-system design chapter. I also have a whole sheaf of case studies with which to develop and test a new section, on the design of individual worlds. I think I’m also prepared to produce a new draft of the next Aminata Ndoye story, a novella titled In the House of War, which will be the next item to get published. Busy, busy – but at least I’m continuing to work through my Gantt chart.

Aminata Ndoye – A First Look

Aminata Ndoye – A First Look

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Pivoting from the project I worked on through most of June, I’ve decided to spend July getting some stories self-published. Specifically, the first two or three of the stories I’ve written in my “Human Destiny” universe.

This is a setting in which humanity is conquered in the mid-21st century by an interstellar empire called the Khedai Hegemony. The Hegemony then proceeds to govern Earth with a surprising degree of detached benevolence, providing peace, long life, prosperity, and more individual freedom than most humans have ever enjoyed under human rule. The cost, of course, is humanity’s control over its own fate.

Two hundred years later, and much to everyone’s surprise, the Hegemony opens the door to permit a few exceptional humans to serve as officers in the “interstellar service,” a starship fleet with combined roles of exploration, contact, and enforcement of law and policy. Kind of like Star Trek‘s Starfleet, if that was run by non-humans, and if it very much did not have a Prime Directive of non-interference.

One of the first humans to earn a commission in the interstellar service is Aminata Ndoye, a woman who grew up in what we would think of as Senegal. Eventually she reaches command rank in the service, many thousands of years before anyone expected a human to do so. From there she plays a part in establishing humanity’s long-term role in the galaxy: the human destiny.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve already written two stories about Aminata, and my work through June has given me a fair amount of inspiration for a third. So I’ve decided to stop sitting on these stories and start self-publishing them. Which means I need to be thinking about cover images. So, over this weekend, I broke out my favorite 3D-modeling tools and started putting together a cover image for the first story. That work isn’t finished, but I have a pretty good start, a head-shot of Aminata herself as a young woman, just starting out on her career.

Here she is:

This image fits a scene late in the story, in which Aminata dresses up very formally (including the hijab which Senegalese women rarely wear) before a visit to the local Hegemony governor, an encounter which sets her on the path that eventually leads her to the stars.

A bit more work and I should have a complete book cover. One more editing pass through the story itself, and I’ll transpose that into e-book format for publication. With any luck, that story will be up on Amazon by the end of this week.