a big undertaking

[FEERspreads]

This is my first post here... it's sort of an introduction and a request. I'm going to use some comic-book terms, because like it or not, comic book universes are the best examples of what I'm talking about (other than the extended universes of Star Wars or Star Trek).

I've been serious about conworlding since I was a child. In High School, a friend and I created multiple stories, some based on different planets which we fully developed. It grew into more than just a hobby when I was in college. A few friends and I decided to see how far we could get with our own fictional universe, not a world, but thousands of interconnected planets. The intention was developing a media production company to make these creations into something viable; to make a passion into something more.

We created the framework for the universe; the underlying physics, the rules and the direction. We created a dozen or so worlds and peoples, usually centered around stories. (Creating the protagonist would require creating a new race or species, same for certain other characters.) Of course, we've created an alternate earth, which has been affected by the descendants from another story taking place in a different area of the universe, 2 millions years prior.

Being human, we can't actually create thousands of fully fleshed out worlds on our own. We would need help, but to have help, we'd need new people. Having new people means the possibility that our tight-knit universe would become convoluted (I'm looking at Marvel and DC here). It's not a dig on other creators, creativity is not something that naturally has bounds on it. Multiple creators, all wanting something different, all having different ideas on how a character should be, (and all having varying levels of knowledge) is why Wolverine can survive from a single cell, and why Captain America has been shown to throw a shield through a helicopter... Let's not forget Crisis on Infinite Earths.

To safeguard against that, I began developing a classification system which will manifest in a restricted online database. It will hold all characters, objects, locations, and less tangible aspects of the universe such as beliefs, relationships between individuals and groups, as well as basic concepts. I'm not insane, I know that classifying EVERYTHING in the universe in a MySQL database would take more memory than we currently have available outside of fashioning a quantum computer out of a black hole (since a lot of the information is recursive)... but we don't need all of the information. We don't need to record everyone's life, only those of note. And since it's a data-driven system, additions can be made at any time.

The system will help to fact-check. Future additions will be a writing app which will interface with the database system. I'm also toying around with getting a hold of Watson from IBM and instituting an AI based helper... that's years down the line, and not really pertinent to this.

My company is made. We're taking clients as a design house right now, but as soon as our classification system is up (and after a round of funding), we're going to start production.

So, what am I getting at?

Well... are any of you interested in this side of the veil? You might call it the metaconstruction, or conworlding theory.
Conworlders should not only know what their world is, but they should know how to classify everything in order to make it coherent.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but my organization process is a little convoluted. A discussion between like-minded people could prove interesting.

[Thakowsaizmu]

I... what?

[FEERspreads]

Sorry if I confused. I'm on a creation high at the moment and my thoughts may not have flowed as well as I had hoped.

Anything I can clarify?

[Thakowsaizmu]

Are you looking for people to help you with something? Or meaning to sell something?

[FEERspreads]

I certainly don't mean to sell anything to this group.

I'm looking for a discussion on the mechanics of conworlding theory rather than conworlding itself. Specifically, I'm wondering if anyone is interested in my classification system and would like to discuss it and the methods I'm using... perhaps incorporate some ideas of their own.

I'm having trouble finding people who are interested in figuring out HOW to classify a universe. I am creating a system, but it's a big undertaking for one person.

[xijlwya]

I think this is highly interesting! I can totally see your point and understand your wish to organise your creative output in an accessible and systematic way.

Just some quick thoughts on that:

I think that a classification system may hinder creativitiy if it is too rigid. Even a diverse classification system may bring people to spending more time on categorizing their thought correctly than actually developing it. Therefore, I would suggest a fairly open system were the user has to provide the category and hope that useful categories emerge in the process. I imagine that you have data objects that can contain texts, pictures and other media which are than connected by relationships. Come to think of it, the thing I have in mind would probably be much like wikipedia ...

[FEERspreads]

I'm glad this sounds interesting to someone. I was thinking I had confused everyone and maybe they thought I was some kind of bot .

I think that a classification system may hinder creativitiy if it is too rigid. Even a diverse classification system may bring people to spending more time on categorizing their thought correctly than actually developing it.

One of my main goals is to find a balance between creativity and structure.
To better help you understand, let me spin you a narrative of someone using the system when it's fully finished (I'll use a quote just to organize):

The creator (or developer, as those can be two distinct roles) opens their web browser, they navigate to a url. They are asked for authentication. When logged in, the user is greeted with a welcome screen and a menu. From here they can go to their vault (their database interface) or go to their creation area.

The vault is very much like a character sheet, but for more than just a character. For anything you want to create, it will ask a series of questions which will gather data in order to define what you wish to create. For a new species, it may ask you for details on average lifespan, average height, body structure, etc. This may be done in a modular fashion, so that rather than asking you a predefined set of questions, the creator can add bits of information as they come to them, choosing from preset questions, as well as more complex multi-part questions and custom options.

Once the creator has their species 'down on paper', so to speak, they can begin assigning additional information to it. Species can have multiple ethnicities, so the creator will assign ethnicities to it (alternatively, you can start anywhere in the chain and assign whatever element to whatever other element, for example if you created the ethnicity first, you could assign it to a species which you create later)

This is a very limited view of this, but using these methods, one could create relational collections of data. These 'static' types of elements are relatively easy. A Species isn't going to change much over time in certain areas, and if it does, it's usually an evolution, making it a new species. It's the time-based entries that are going to be difficult.

This system will need to be able to rectify revisions. If your universe allows for time-travel (which mine does), then those revisions will all have to be stored.

I would like to do this all semantically, where the user simply types in notes. The system will review the note and categorize the information. The more the system can do and the user doesn't have to do, the more creativity we can save.

On the other side, in the creative portal, the writer/developer/creator will be free to go to their hearts content as long as they set up when the bit of story is taking place (this can be relative or absolute, we've created our own time scale with a determined 'beginning of everything', so our creators can say that this takes place at exactly _________ in the universe). If the time is set, then the system can use it to determine if the story makes sense.

This is why we want to incorporate the Watson AI into the system (which isn't crazy, actually... Watson was created with mostly open source software... I've already contacted IBM with the basics of this idea in an attempt to join their ecosystem, but it's a longshot... even so, building a smaller version that lives in a linux server rack wouldn't be entirely difficult) but that AI would 'read' the story and compare it to the data is already knows is right. If it finds a conflict it will pop up in a special area and tell the creator, who can either continue working, just to get the idea out, or stop and resolve the conflict right there either by changing the story, or even going back and changing the original data.

If they do go back and change the original data, the AI will again check it to make sure it jives with the rest of the data.

text, media, and other files (we're heavily 3D oriented), aren't an issue.

I hate wikipedia... In the early days of the ERRANT universe's development, I attempted to organize and collaborate through wikipedia. No one but me used it because they were creatives and they couldn't be bothered with learning the syntax... And even when I used it, it was a pain getting all of the links working together. IF you want something that impedes on creativity, sit down and make a wiki of your universe as you're creating it.

My goal with this system is to have it be actively used by our creators. Most people who make up stories are already doing backstories and character sheets. They're already organizing their thoughts which, in the end, is just data. The system want will streamline their development time so they can think about their creation rather than the method in which they're going to keep it all organized.

The one drawback to someone making a giant universe full of different worlds, each unique and complex, is that our minds aren't capable of handling all the information at once. But this system will be like an assistant.

I know it sounds crazy and farfetched, but it really isn't that ridiculous... people just aren't working on it yet. From a business aspect, the money isn't in crazy creation techniques; you can spend tens of thousands of dollars setting up a system like this to help people you're going to have to pay anyway create twelve stories, or you can just pay them to create twelve stories and see where the chips fall. To most executives, a creative endeavor is a risk anyway, so they'd rather not add on to it.

Anyway, I'm getting off track.

The problems I'm having with the system right now are:

1. The system has to have some degree of rigidity. Without it, there's no way of keeping the universe from falling into a muddled mess, and it becomes pointless. Too rigid, and the system is restrictive and unusable. That balance is going to take complexity.
2. Making the classification system as robust as possible... does your universe incorporate souls? If so, what kind? Can your characters be reincarnated? The system needs to be able to handle just about anything one can throw at it... meaning it has to be expandable, cause I'm sure as hell not capable of anticipating EVERYTHING anyone could ever think of. I'm creative. but not that creative. but in being expandable, it has to be able to use the new information in a meaningful way.
3. Without trying to start arguments among creators, I'm trying to settle on standards inside the classification system... the most prominent being 'what is intelligence'. I think I've figured that one out, but there are so many others... and these aren't simple problems either, most of them have been messing with modern science and sociologists for decades. But, it really illuminates the fact that to try to make a functioning, as real as possible universe, you have to really get down to the nitty gritty and try to have a general understanding of damn near everything.
4. Locations... locations are the stuff of the devil. Organizing where something in a fundamentally infinite expanse of space is... well... insanely difficult. Also, consider this... A world is a location, a continent is a location on that world. a guitar is an object... but for microbes and anything small enough to fit on the guitar, it is a location. Categorizing if a character was someplace at sometime is a specific function of this system (in order to make sure writers don't make character's teleport or duplicate themselves by disregarding where they were before) So objects can be locations, and locations can be objects, which brings in a host of other issues in terms of organizing the data. Also time changes in locations makes a giant, ridiculously complex issue concerning logistics.
   
   Although, while writing this out, I may have come up with ways to fix some of these issues... For instance, calculating where something is from the reference point of the center of the universe... which is so simple I feel stupid for not considering it earlier.
   
   Also, making locations an additional element of information added onto the more basic fundamental elements makes anything potentially a location, which solves that issue... hmm... maybe I should just type my thoughts out on here more.

I need to wait on my application with IBM to move anywhere with this project. If they want to go for it, I can't just share all of my information with anyone (have to protect the project), but if they pass, it might be fun to get a group together and go through this a lot more in depth. I could share everything I've been trying to do (as best as I can) and the group might get further than I ever could. Anyone that would want to implement it in reality can... though the technical know-how for this to work in its fullest form is pretty staggering.

I should stop rambling. I realize how long this response is, and I apologize. If it sounds unintelligible, you can blame it on the fact that it's 6:22am here and I haven't slept.

[xijlwya]

Actually that sounded quite intelligible. I totally got your point and I see the problem.

The thing ist that you ask quite much from us here - but there are a few people on this board who are creative and have some knowledge in computer science which is certainly helpful here. I happen to be one of those .

I just realized the scale of your project. Programming-wise I would say, for someone versed enough, this is feasable. But the real challenge is the underlying structure. As it seems you have already put quite some thought into it.

To be honest, I would not like the idea of being asked dozens of questions as to where to locate my entry in the database. But on the other hand people are supposed to throw material at it that is already finished (at least in itself) and can withstand such an "interview".

Maybe you could group things accoridng to their gravitational dependency: all stars rotate around the center of a galaxy, all planets rotate around star, all satelites rotate around a planet; specimen are hold on surface by a planets gravity and so on.

I really like this problem of location and object identification for some reason. I wonder if you could have relationships of that kind: microbe -> guitar : location. Guitar -> microbe : object. Planet -> star: gravicenter, location. Starship -> pilot: crew. Pilot -> starship: location and so on. You could still implement your previous ideas in that, but it leaves room for creativity and adaption. Come to think of it you probably already do that .

Meh.

Maybe you could also follow our scientific field segregations for categories: sociological, psychological, biological, chemical, physical, lingual... so you could define the relationship of a people to their planet physical: their center of gravity, biological: the room of their evolution, sociological: their concept of home.
Maybe also a static/dynamic diffentiation (I think you already talked about this) could be helpful. Is A doing something to B? Or has A just a property B? Then, the microbe just has the property of being located at the guitar, whereas I may play the guitar, or throw it into a stable orbit around the neighbouring star.

The more I think of it, the more I realise the dazzling dimensions of your undertaking... I just do not see yet where the point is the board could be of any help to you.

[FEERspreads]

I'm just here to discuss the theory of universe creation, really.

When developing projects, I've learned that finding sources of information (which I'm already interested in) that I could bring together and combine into the prototype or the finished project is the best method instead of me just powering through.

When I'm to the point of constructing it, I will go to tap a more tech-centered community (probably one I am already a part of).

Now, I'm on this board because conworlding is a specific passion of mine and I like the community. But this thread exists because I think it might be interesting to try to form the different opinions and techniques present on this board (and elsewhere) into a more structured set of techniques and practices. I'm not trying to make anyone who conworlds follow any practice we could come up with... but it might be helpful for newcomers (or structure enthusiasts like myself) to have some kind of 'school' of thought to work off of, rather than coming at it with unbridled creativity.

Basically, expanding the 'how to not conworld' idea into something much much larger which touches on multiple studies like physics, philosophy, psychology, etc. But instead of focusing on the negative, the how to not do something... it will be focusing on how to do something.

My main focus is in trying to create a mindset that will undermine the typical 'human-centric' view of creation, where everything is based on how humans behave, but also combine theories of general creative writing which I've learned and developed...

To sum up...
I want to get a group together which discusses multiple disciplines of knowledge (physics, social sciences, geology, anthropology, biology, etc) from the perspective of creating a universe rather than a single world. Individual worlds would be discussed, just as individual peoples, but the complete scope would be greater. The worlds would all need to follow the rules of the parent universe.

Perhaps even making a dry run universe where each person helps in the creation of the fundamental rules of the universe, and then creates at least one fully functioning world. The worlds would be discussed and critiqued both in the construction, as well as the story telling potential (as that is what makes fictional worlds useful creations beyond academia, in our reality) These worlds created would, of course be owned by their creators and nothing commercial would be made of the universe (I feel I have to say that since I'm in a position that some people might not trust, and I'm the one suggesting a test-run universe).

The thoughts and the critiques could be a great source of information on the theory of universe creation. There are people here with knowledge I simply do not have. I have knowledge that others might not. Think of it as a rigorous experiment. Also, could be a hell of a lot of fun.

This would be done without the use of my system, in order to better understand the methods and techniques to creating a fictional universe, to eventually incorporate into a system. This group would have to find ways to organize their thoughts and relate their worlds to each other, potentially even creating an interstellar community. Each world can be created non-linearly, meaning that a planet may form millions, or billions of years before another, or after the death of an entire star system.

Those taking part in this would need to be prepared to collaborate with each other and tackle problems such as the beginning of the universe, spiritual involvement, whether the earth is a part of this new universe, standard units of measurement, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Of course, this all hinges on others being interested, and having a group that has some kind of skill-level, and someone in the group having some kind of control as a mod or admin... Now I'm just tossing out logistics.

I'm not sure anyone would even come in on this.

[xijlwya]

Well, I can image that some others besides me are willing to discuss conworlding methodology, i.e. the theory of conworlding. But when it comes to creating actual material you are quite demanding. I rarely manage to work on my own material, so it's very hard for me to make material for you when I could make my own stuff instead.
I don't know if anyone is willing to put that kind of effort into your project, especially since it is apparently not open source or free to use for everyone.

[Salmoneus]

...so you're asking people to devote their work to making a product for you to sell?

How much are you paying, again?

[Lambuzhao]

My company is made. We're taking clients as a design house right now, but as soon as our classification system is up (and after a round of funding), we're going to start production.

Since your company's made, what's its business address & telephone number?
Most businesses these days have a website; what's the URL for yours?
Your business ought to have a EIN, or an IRD number (or equivalent) on public record. If you don't mind my asking, what is it?

Please feel free to toss out these logistics at any time.