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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.

Status Report (22 September 2018)

Status Report (22 September 2018)

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Very good progress, over the last few days, on a draft map of Khedai Hegemony space. Rather than post the unfinished map here, I’ll give you a link to the item in my Scraps folder on Deviant Art. I’d encourage anyone who’s interested in this project to have a look.

Probably a few more days to work on the map itself, and then I may also be able to put together a gazetteer for Hegemony space. I’m beginning to think this may work as a high-space-opera GURPS setting, among other things. Most importantly, of course, the exercise of finally mapping all of this out is giving me lots of ideas for Human Destiny stories . . .

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.

Status Report (21 August 2018)

Status Report (21 August 2018)

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Still slogging along through the HIPPARCOS catalog – every day, I work through a dozen or so stars (and find myself wishing I had just written a C program for this already). At the moment I seem to have gotten through 276 entries in the database, out of a total of 327 reaching to the ten-parsec radius. Out of those stars, 23 have at least one planet with a complex biosphere, and at least a few systems have two each. It’s looking like a trend of about one in ten to twelve stars will have a more-or-less-Earthlike. I’m not bothering to count the “pre-garden” worlds, with liquid-water oceans but too young to have developed a post-Cambrian biosphere. There are quite a few of those.

Today I sat down for a few hours and started drawing a map of nearby space, including all stars of K class and above, and those few M-class stars that have Earthlike worlds. I’m using the same techniques that I once applied to this map of the solar neighborhood, and I imagine the end result will look similar.

I’m using a galactic coordinate system this time, rather than the usual equatorial coordinates, so a lot of stars will look like they’re in the wrong place if you’re accustomed to the maps from (e.g.) the 2300 AD or Universe tabletop games. I’m planning to include the appropriate coordinate transform in the Architect of Worlds draft, when I get around to writing the “using real astronomical data” section.

I’m also marking down tentative names for Earthlike worlds, instead of an abstract “resource value.” My vision for the Human Destiny setting has evolved quite a bit over the past few years. Today I’m assuming that the dominant interstellar civilizations won’t spend all that much time or effort exploiting star systems that don’t host complex biospheres. So the systems of greatest interest are going to be the ones that humans (eventually) settle.

If anyone’s interested in glancing at the work in progress, here’s a link to the appropriate entry in my Scraps folder. Only about twenty or so stars placed so far, or a little under one-third of the way through my data set. This is slow work, but it’s starting to come together.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a revision to my old notes about the density and structure of interstellar civilizations. Here’s a link to an article I wrote a few years ago, which lays out an argument about the limits to an interstellar civilization’s growth. (That article is also one of my few contributions to Winchell Chung’s Atomic Rockets website, in fact.) The Human Destiny setting incorporates that notion into its basic assumptions. I’ll probably publish those notes here within a few days.

Status Report (3 June 2018)

Status Report (3 June 2018)

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Some more work on the world map over the weekend, rather painstaking. I’m flipping back and forth between continuing to paint in elevation contours at lower and lower levels, and adding ocean currents. Neither of these is finished, but another day or two of effort should have me there. Then the fun part begins – actually mapping out climate zones.

Here’s the current map:

Status Report (31 May 2018)

Status Report (31 May 2018)

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Not a lot of time over the past couple of days to work on this, but I’ve managed to tweak some of the landforms a little. The planet resembles a mirrored Earth a bit less now. I’ve also started painting altitude contours on the map. So far, just the very highest peaks, the Andes- or Himalayas-equivalents, but the next few layers should cover all of the land areas with colored zones to indicate altitude.

Status Report (28 May 2018)

Status Report (28 May 2018)

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A few hours of work this evening, while I had Wonder Woman playing in the background, and I ended up with a decent set of land-masses for my world map.

I seem to have reinvented an Earth, although flipped east-to-west. That not-North-America stands out in particular, and all those island arcs in the far western not-Asia are kind of reminiscent too. It makes sense, I suppose, since plausible plate tectonics aren’t going to generate completely arbitrary shapes.

There are differences too, of course. The pseudo-Atlantic ocean is a bit wider, and the continents are in general separated by stretches of sea. There’s a narrow gap between the not-Americas, and instead of a Mediterranean Sea there’s an open ocean between the not-Africa and the not-Asia. That’s going to do some interesting things to ocean currents, I think.

No matter. The actual stories I intend to write are going to be on a much smaller scale, so if the layout of the continents looks a little derivative, that won’t be obvious to my eventual audience. What’s important right now is that I’m reasonably satisfied with this layout, so I can move on to the next steps again.

Status Report (27 May 2018)

Status Report (27 May 2018)

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One of the major stumbling blocks with world-building, at least for me, is that even when I’m momentarily satisfied with the outcome of a task, it doesn’t take much to rob me of that satisfaction. In this case, while staring at my world map draft in progress, I began to compare it to both the real world and to other world-builders’ efforts, and found it lacking. Too crude.

So I’ve gone back to first principles and started over, this time rebuilding a map of tectonic plates without pre-designing any of the continental land masses. This time I strove to come up with something to resemble the general pattern of tectonic plates on the real Earth, at least as far as the number of major and minor plates was concerned. I also paid attention to the way plate boundaries are arranged – whether they tend to be convex or concave, and how they form seams and three-way intersections.

One thing I found useful was to simply mark off the polar regions and ignore those. One of the things that was giving me fits was the transformation from a flat projection to the globe and back, and that switch always introduces the most distortion close to the poles. By assuming there will be no major polar land masses, I can gloss over how any plate boundaries might be laid out in the arctic or antarctic regions.

The result (equirectangular projection only) is as follows. So far, so good. I haven’t marked continental plates yet, but there will be five major continents and a few minor land-masses and island arcs.

Next step will be mark out the relative movement of plates at each boundary, and then sketch land-forms to match.

 

 

Status Report (25 May 2018)

Status Report (25 May 2018)

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Just a quick report today: progress on my world maps for the Curse of Steel project. After tinkering a bit and learning how to build and use layer masks in Photoshop, I managed to paint mountain belts in their own layer on my map, with the following results:

Here, the deep-red belts are “young” mountains, the result of recent orogeny at the site of plate collisions or subduction. Think the Andes, Rockies, or Himalayas. The narrow, golden-brown belts are “old” mountains, the eroded remains of ranges that formed many millions of years ago in previous orogenic periods. Think the Appalachians or Atlas range.

One thing strikes me: the big continents to the east are going to have really big rain-shadow deserts, since those young, high mountains are going to block any kind of monsoon climate from moving too far inland. I’ll have to figure out the air circulation patterns next to know for sure. It makes sense, though, since large continents tend to have big arid zones anyway.

Next, it will be time to work out those climate patterns. I’ve been reading up on techniques for that all week, and the long weekend coming up should be a good time to work out the details.