Day 18: Speculation and Society

A day late but not a dollar short. today is a make-up day to keep me on track for my 30 Days of WorldBuilding. Hopefully I can bang out days 18 and 19 today, and be back on schedule.

So today is reportedly the last day I'll be doing active, focused work on my speculative element; the Jump Drive. It involves going back to Day 10 and getting information from it.

Revise your cultural write-up from Day 10 to include your speculative element, and [how it affects your culture]. As a bonus, you can get back to your character sketch and figure out where your protagonist and supporting cast fit into your speculative elements and society.

Well; I don't have a character yet, but I do have a society. The longer description for Day 18 asks some very specific questions which seem like a good place to start.

How does the speculative element, with all of its powers and limitations, affect culture and society? How are people different in your culture, now that you have this new element? 

It allows a global civilization to become an interstellar one. I makes trade with other worlds become much more profitable if one system has an excess of one thing and another system has a shortage of that same product. It might make cultures more planetary based, rather than regional or continent based, but there may still be some resistance to cultural blending.

This also leads to many similar issues we see in our world; if items can be built on another planet for a cheaper cost, why invest in building those factories locally and paying workers more to do it here. Where does patriotism and planetary pride give way to profit margins?


Because of raiders like the Drachon Clans and the Blood Nebula Pirates, there is an added level or risk and danger associated with space travel. The pirates are going to attack what they can, maximizing profit for as little risk as possible. This makes lone, big, unguarded cargo ships a prime target. However, the Drachon Clans will attack well-defended convoys and even colonies and homeworlds. It's a constant worry that keeps everyone on their toes.

What do you think people will continue to do, with or without your speculative element? How do "ordinary" people react to those with or without the speculative element? 

It is likely that the majority of The Union have never traveled through fold-space; have never been through a jump-gate or jump-drive ship. However, it is unlikely that their lives have not been affected by the jump-drive. Certain products, certain advancements are possible through the jump drive; either by trade or simple cross-communication with other cultures.

There probably should be a planet or two in game where the population no only elected not to join the Union, but also do not have access to Jump Gate technology. Maybe they don't want it. They could still have an advanced society, but everything is local and self sufficient. They may be fine. However, I also envision a planet like "Botany Bay" and Australia, where criminals or outcasts are sent as punishment to try and eek out a living and survive. They would be wholly without Jump Drive technology and isolated. They may not have all the resources they need to survive, and no means to escape their solitude. This would result in a very post-apocalyptic-like society where the strongest survive and the weak either succumb to the strong or are killed.

One more to do today.  I'll get to that next...