Project 30 Challenge, day 5
Progress report
Today I wrote for nearly forty minutes. I used my timer twice, at different times of the day, but the second time I just kept writing for another twenty minutes. It feels good to get into a flow like that. I wrote exactly 700 words, and caught up to and went past where I had originally built the skeleton on day one.
So for planning, because I got past where I last built the skeleton to, I did a little more work on that, envisioning what is meant to happen next based on what has already happened and what has been implied to be happening. Not too far ahead, though. The way I like to do it is like moving from one illuminated street light to the next one.
Factoid
Because this is science fantasy, kind of in the vein of Star Wars, I need to build a deity and belief system that would work for what I’m planning. A deity that is all knowing, all powerful, and all benevolent despite the existence of evil. But something I want to do is give this deity a more physical, interactive presence in the lives of this universe, more so than in our own. To that end, I developed the idea of the Great Trees.
A little cosmology: In the beginning, when the deity of Roselia’s universe(s?) created everything by following the natural laws of matter, the deity created a special seed for a tree to act as the interface between the deity and humanity. Faith and worship are what feed this tree. Communities maintain a large version of the tree, called a Great Tree, while individuals can maintain smaller, bonsai-style versions of the tree for a more personal relationship. Nothing is forced on the people, they must choose to engage with the tree system by accepting a seed, but when they do choose and actively participate in following the deity through interacting with the trees, they are given access to certain things otherwise not possible.
There’s one big thing for the purpose of the story. The trees are all linked together, because they are all connected to the deity, and that connection makes it possible to have instantaneous communication anywhere in the universe, regardless of distance, a bit like Ursula K. Le Guin’s ansible, first coined in 1966. This connection also allows for faster-than-light travel, though not instantaneous. Generally speaking, the fastest way to travel is using a cathedral ship, which houses a Great Tree, and going to somewhere that already has a tree, the two Great Trees drawing together like magnets, but the FTL is not limited to only that. Using the power of the Great Tree, a cathedral ship can travel anywhere in the universe, with similar physics and relativity to Star Wars, meaning there's not a time tax people have to pay for their travel like there would be in our universe. No 4 year journeys that take 10 years due to relativity. (See, that's the fantasy part of the science fantasy.)
Inspiration – The Shannara Chronicles Show
Back in 2016, there was a little MTV adaptation of Terry Brooks’ Shannara books. It only lasted 2 seasons and was much maligned because of its CW-style drama and departure from the books. I thought it was good, not great, but then I only within the last year or so read the first Shannara book so I wasn’t watching it through the lens of a reader. It was just a cool fantasy show with elves and magic, something we don’t get very often without gratuitous violence and sex.
What I’m pulling from this for my project is the idea for the Ellcrys, the great magical tree that protects the lands from monsters locked away in another dimension. I’m not using it in the same way, see the previous section, but I did get the idea for the Great Tree from thinking about Shannara and the Ellcrys because I love trees, and I especially love massive, magical-looking trees.
Thoughts to share? I have a contact page now!