Creating unique races/ethnicities for science fiction and/or fantasy.

[MrFun]

I have recently been inspired to work out an idea for what could become a novel. I usually start writing the novel once I have created the world, its people, and so on. Other writers are so crazy as to just jump in and start writing their story first, without the background work. Although, there are some writers I'm sure who were exceptionally successful by diving right in without the prep work.


I'm trying to find the best way to create each race/ethnicity's military structure and technology. To me, this seems to be more complicated than other aspects, such as religion. And the reason why this seems somewhat daunting to me is because military structure is reliant on so many different factors, only some of which immediately comes to my mind:

geography (obviously, military forces will not be armed with metal-type weapons if they don't have the metal ores required in their geographical area, unless obtained through trade)

accessibility to particular natural resources in making weapons and armor

population level (lower density population groups will have different means to organize their soldiers into units and so on, than higher density population groups)

technological achievement


How am I suppose to reasonably describe all the possible different military structures and technologies for one race or ethnic group, especially given that the multitude of factors can be combined in numerous ways?

Any insight will be appreciated.

[Zkribbler]

Cummon, give us a hint.

Are we talking about an after-the-bomb story where civilization is reduced to spears and stones. Or a Buck Rogers' futuristic type story with ray guns and stuff. Or maybe even more advanced, where a simple thought can flatten a city.

[MrFun]

I appreciate the curiosity, but I don't want to go into the details of my idea right now.


But I think I found the best way to explicate each group's military structure and technology.

[mrmitchell]

If you don't hate me for the other thread;

I say the best way to understand someone else is to try to think in their shoes. What do they want, or need, or think?

Don't try to apply human thinking to an alien. Try to think like your character would.

[GePap]

I think you have the situation backwards.

Any advanced military doctrine will be the result of long history and experimentation, and that will be based on the aims and goals of combatants, and that will be based on the specific characteristics of a race.

You should firt get anh idea what that race is like, what its inspirations, needs, wants, how it thinks. That way you can then begin to think how sucha race would possibly gather itself up for war. You already said that the possible choices are immense, so once you have a good idea what kind of race this is, just pick one and run with it- as long as it makes sense for the species, it will work.

But remember above all that Novels are stories. You could make up crazy irrelevant ****, but as long as the story is good, people will read on. You could make the most detailed, "accurate" protrayal ever, and if the story is boring, then the story is a failure. So as you advance, make sure the needs of the story come first.

[Urban Ranger]

Unless you want to write hard core science fiction (which means scifi based on a very detailed understanding of the sciences, particularly physics) the thing you need to remember is science fiction stories are about the human condition.

As a result, you can make up stuff as you go along, as long as your goal is to set up a condition to explore an aspect or another of us.

At any rate, I found the best way to create a sentient species is to create its history first - this should be your forte You don't need the detailed stuff, just the important events - how it started, expanded, waxed and waned, who fought whom for what, that sort of things.

You don't need to worry about the presence of metals really, just assume they are available. If a race or species has lasted long enough to be technologically advanced, it's rather implausable that they managed it without using metals.

Do remember that there aren't any unknown elements to us - not the first 100 or so anyway. That's just physics, you know

[Dr Strangelove]

Personally I think that if sentient life develops on other planets it will pretty much resemble us. It will have to breathe oxygen, because of all the types of metabolism known only oxidative metabolism yields enough energy to run a big brain. It will have to have hands and arms, and the hands will have to be as supple and flexible as ours. If it has 2 hands having more thqn 2 legs simply reduces it's flexibility. It will need an omnivorous mouth with the ability to make a wide variety of speech sounds just like us so the overall shape of its head and neck would be similar to ours. It might have some facial markings, just like some apes, but I suspect that having a relatively unadorned face probably had an evolutional advantage - it allows us a wider range of facial expressions without markedly distorting our speech. Since it's general environment is going to be similar to ours, dominated by green and brown colors it's even likely to have comparable coloring, i.e., various shades of brown.

I have some ideas for sci-fi weapons. Does it ever bother you that guys with advanced weaponry, lasers, phasers, blasters, etc., seem to have a great deral of difficulty hitting an adult sized target at 10 to 20 feet? You'd think that someone would have figured out some way to improve rapid targetting and aiming. Well wait no longer. How about a laser with a targetting computer and a holographic display? All the user does is point the weapon towards the target. The computer picks out the target(s) from the background, projects a holographic overlay, and aims the laser. If there's more than one potential target in the area the display projects an overlay for each, then the user just points the gun towards the one he wants to shoot. The computer also identifies the target's head and plots out the location of the target's brainstem, aiming a thin beam to transect the brainstem, killing the target instantly every time.

The same type of high tech targetting could be applied at other levels of combat. In fact one should expect that future combat would be swift and horrifically efficient instead of the long drawn out slug fests portrayed in movies. How would this concept affect your sci-fi novel or movie?

[Elok]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The same type of high tech targetting could be applied at other levels of combat. In fact one should expect that future combat would be swift and horrifically efficient instead of the long drawn out slug fests portrayed in movies. How would this concept affect your sci-fi novel or movie?

Didn't they make this same prediction for WWI?

[Kontiki]

Just follow the Star Trek model - all aliens are humans with a couple of extra pieces of fake skin glued to their faces.

[DerSchwarzfalke]

Le Guin's sci fi novels are especially noted for her use of different races and ethnicities, so you may want to begin there for some inspiration.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
If you don't hate me for the other thread;

I say the best way to understand someone else is to try to think in their shoes. What do they want, or need, or think?

Don't try to apply human thinking to an alien. Try to think like your character would.

Thanks for these tips, but these are very basic tips that I have known for some time. Although, sometimes some writers forget or overlook even the basic, important fundamentals as they create their story.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by GePap
I think you have the situation backwards.

Any advanced military doctrine will be the result of long history and experimentation, and that will be based on the aims and goals of combatants, and that will be based on the specific characteristics of a race.

You should firt get anh idea what that race is like, what its inspirations, needs, wants, how it thinks. That way you can then begin to think how sucha race would possibly gather itself up for war. You already said that the possible choices are immense, so once you have a good idea what kind of race this is, just pick one and run with it- as long as it makes sense for the species, it will work.

Yes -- this is somewhat along the lines that I thought of myself, last night.
I don't know if it's scary or enlightening that you and I thought along the same lines.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Unless you want to write hard core science fiction (which means scifi based on a very detailed understanding of the sciences, particularly physics) the thing you need to remember is science fiction stories are about the human condition.

As a result, you can make up stuff as you go along, as long as your goal is to set up a condition to explore an aspect or another of us.

At any rate, I found the best way to create a sentient species is to create its history first - this should be your forte You don't need the detailed stuff, just the important events - how it started, expanded, waxed and waned, who fought whom for what, that sort of things.

You don't need to worry about the presence of metals really, just assume they are available. If a race or species has lasted long enough to be technologically advanced, it's rather implausable that they managed it without using metals.

Do remember that there aren't any unknown elements to us - not the first 100 or so anyway. That's just physics, you know

I plan to write out how the intelligent race evolved from a more primitive, anscestral species, and then summarize their history at the point that their ancient anscestors developed some form of writing.

[Ted Striker]

Mister Fun,

There are alot of good ideas here.

What I would do is, since you are a history guy, this will be easy as hell for you. Okay, go back in time to about 1530, right when the Old World, and the New World were clashing.

This is one of my favorite times in history because of how heterogeneous all the different nation states were. The American Indian nations all had unique characteristics to each other. This clash of very distinct civilizations was an extremley interesting time. (Though sucked for those that were "clashed.") Then you have the European monarchies, each with their own separate traditions, but still derived from the Greek and Roman classical ages that came before them.

As was mentioned, the more you can relate the fantasy characters to things people can relate to, the more you will find a chord with your audience. The problem with alot of science fiction is that it goes too far out there, and people are like, "wtf???"

So, I would study ancient civilizations and find the most intriguing aspects of them, and base the heart of your races on these.

It's all about perspective. We did a drill in our literature class once, I'm sure most people have heard of it, where there was this strange species described in which the men of the tribe would cut their faces every day with a sharp knife.

I can't remember the rest, but bascially, they were describing Americans, and the "face cutting" was actually them shaving.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
It will have to breathe oxygen, because of all the types of metabolism known only oxidative metabolism yields enough energy to run a big brain.

The crystalline sapiens on Rho Theseus IV laugh at your naivity for believing that brains are necessary in order to be able to think.