As my last blog post more or less announced I’ve been doing some worldbuilding. To be precise I’ve been writing a history of the 23rd century. I’ll go in later to do the twenty second century and parts of the twenty first.
Some of this I had actually worked out in very broad terms before, but because I’m fitting this years NaNoWriMo story into the same universe as 2006′s – albeit at a much earlier point in history – getting the history of that universe locked down has suddenly become quite important. So I’m going through and doing year by year lists of major events to start with. Important event will later get the their own, bigger, stories, and some years may well get separate detailed outlines (possibly even day by day accounts) of event.
Which brings me to the title of this post, because as I was doing the work, I started thinking about seers. Or rather I started thinking that there must at least be a chance, however hypothetical, of some of what I was writing down coming true once the twenty third century actually comes around.
Which makes you wonder, were all the seers scattered throughout history really just sci-fi novelists who, frustrated by the fact that sci-fi novels hadn’t been invented yet, had to stick to worldbuilding and sell it as prophecy… Probably not all of them, but I suppose it might be true for some.1
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1 I used Nostradamus in the title because he’s the first seer that came to mind. I don’t know enough about him for this post to be any sort of comment on him specifically.
You took the thought out of my mind
I was already wondering how you would come up with stories for whole centuries, but then started to wonder how cool it might be if some of what you just make up today becomes true in 200 years. Too bad we won’t be around to check.
And speaking of “sci-fi” seers: you are aware that JMS just said that it is a TV show to not cause mass panics (nuking of San Diego, E-M war, etc.), right?
Yeah, we’ll probably need to put some of this stuff in time capsules so they can check back later. And if you thought San Diego was called fiction just so it wouldn’t frighten people, you’re going to love my views on the twenty second century
The stuff I expect to have the most trouble with is going to be up to around 2050 or 2070, that’s just a bit too close for comfort. On the other hand, if I’m right about any of that I’ll have a fair chance of seeing it…
Now you got me hooked! I am really curious about your thoughts on the twenty second century, although your aside on San Diego scares me a little. And whatever you have in store for the next 50 or 70 years … it can’t be that bad! Obviously, a certain politician didn’t manage to blow us all up in the last 188 days he’s in office, otherwise you wouldn’t have anything to write about. So, writing a timeline for the next centuries at all is a prediction in itself – that we’ll still be there.
Okay, this is getting confusing. I will stick to the present with my story for NaNoWriMo, I always get lost when there’s too much “time” involved.
I’m hoping to start working out the twenty second century in more detail tomorrow. If I can find the time I’ll probably do a “year by year” list for it. But just to lift a tip of the veil: the twenty third century starts with peace talks…
The twenty third starts with peace talks? Uhoh … that can’t mean anything good for the previous 200 years.
But I am amazed how much you “know” about the story and the events surrounding it. Probably I should consider writing a futuristic novel myself; I have to do research to get certain procedures, titles and places right. If my story would be sci-fi, I could make it all up as well. I sort of envy you.
In 1558., Nostradamus, writing to King Henry, mentions
the Chaldean number/alphabet, (numerology). He also
includes the code number 1080, which represents the
“universal number” – as indicated by Plato and others.
1080 is the total,(estimate) of elemental particles in
the known universe, i.e., 10 ^ 80th power….
Only one person is to understand the significance
of the 1080, and will apply it to his own experiences,
which includes a future cosmic event, i.e., a supernova.
Crystalinks site:
http://www.crystalinks.com/nostradamus.html
“entelekk” – numomathematics
To be honest I don’t always know this much. In this case I have a huge advantage in having written a story set in this universe (albeit at a much later date) before. Most of the history I built up for that story is too late for what I’m working on now (I’ve mainly been working on stuff after first contact happens in 2242, this time I’m looking a couple of decades earlier).
But even having the later stuff in place (some of it thought up in advance, much of it made up as the story went along) means I’ve got stuff to work back from for the earlier periods.
We need to have massive nukes in 2242, so logically we need an armsrace at some previous point – that kind of stuff.
That sounds like the “good ol’ JMS” approach (at least that’s where I read it first): if you gonna use the gun in act three, show it in act two.
Do they, by any chance, encourage creative writing in schools in Netherlands? Because here in Germany we just discussed pieces of literature (Hamlet, Faust, Antigone…), especially in the last two years of school (11th and 12th grade for me). Except maybe in 5th or 6th grade we never did any creative writing, so story building is not one of my strongest parts.
Not much actual creative writing in school here either, at least not back in my day (less than a decade ago, but still). I think they’re bringing some more of it in these days, though I could be wrong.
In my case school didn’t matter much. I started writing (though it might be better to say trying to write) fiction around age 11. Once you’ve done enough worldbuilding grows instinctive.