Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

[SemiSaneAuthor]

Or said Empire Building Fics are set on easy mode, like a Commander Fic who can go, "Brutally Efficient, Self-Replicating, Mechanism of War," from the very beginning.

So question, does this fic need to be an Empire Building one? Or can you write it differently? And if it does need to be one, then has anyone written about Klaus in Pre Girl Genius canon founding his Empire? You know, take from the best of such an Empire and model it for your protag in a different world?

 

[Tili]

The Forge rewrote reality to ensure witnesses to her somehow amassing 7 doctorates from high school to now and continues to do so. It won't be a problem, but it is a waste of her time at the moment

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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"
- The Forge

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

To point out Empire Building in fiction then people use existing power bases to start off. Agatha from Girl Genius doesn't start her own Circus she joins one, and Mechanisburg was made by her ancestors.

Or let's take Voldemort as an example, he uses Parseltongue to make a power base in Slytherin, builds up during Hogwarts. Fucks off for a few years till he feels comfortably immortal, comes back, reestablishes his power base. Then goes to war to conquer Magical Britain. And when he does he uses the existing ministry for his Dark Magic and Magic Nazi state.

Or if I remember rightly Hiver once wrote a Goa'uld SI and had his initial powerbase as a minor Goa'uld to build off.

The Folios for Girl Genius don't show Klaus making the empire. And even then he was a Baron so he had an initial powerbase. So what inital power base is Sophia using? Where does she start Empire Building?

 

[Ultim@tePower]

Never wrote an empire building story but have you thought about the jump-3 ship misjumping and forcing Novak to a distant primitive human colony under attack by aliens or something to pressure her into building an empire quickly to rebuild the jump-3 so she can return her crew home? And saving the colony is also a very nice bonus

 

[Taliesin]

Okay, to set some reader expectations, the arc I was gelling just fell apart on the planning table. Again. Man, how do other people make these 'empire builder' fics look so easy? They are really not my strength it would seem.

Not abandoning shit this time, just waiting for lightning to strike again like it did for the last two chapters. But yeah, that's gonna be an indetermine wait. Maybe I'll try some other project in the interim to stay fresh and mentally loosen up, if I can think of one.

Sorry.

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As a suggestion, have you thought about using an LLM as a sounding board? Not to write for you, but to talk through any problems you're having with outline planning and work through solutions. I find that I usually don't like what the AI comes up with, but in analyzing it I come up with new ideas of my own that do work.

 

[The Unicorn]

Or said Empire Building Fics are set on easy mode, like a Commander Fic who can go, "Brutally Efficient, Self-Replicating, Mechanism of War," from the very beginning.

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I'd describe that as poor worldbuilding, and those stories also usually have no plot

So question, does this fic need to be an Empire Building one?

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Good question, given the setup the story will involve empire building, but since the MC hasn't shown any interest in either politics or military command (quite the opposite in fact) she could leave that to the experts and focus on other stuff. The question is, what would the plot be if it's not an empire builder?

I believe @cliffc999 plan was to use the quest into figuring out how the Villani actually work to hook the next plot arc, but her finding that sort of intelligence would mean she'd be deeply involved in the empire building. Given her role in developing the improved warp drive she won't be going on any dangerous expeditions, so what else could the story be about?

 

[Blade4]

A big thing I would think is just ask yourself what would happen next? What would people logically, if only in their heads, would do? Sophia is going to keep trying to generate tech and help the Confederation. The Confederation wants to survive and now of options that let them escape the pocket. And really want Sophia to keep producing. The Vilani outside of the governor looking to start a fight probably barely knows Earth exists and little reason to go fight a nothing they think locked in a pocket. That the base scenario so what could happen next? Perhaps a side table of potential complications and roll dice to see if that happens and write it out? Perhaps dont even make a planned arc. Just start writing it out organically.

I believe @cliffc999 plan was to use the quest into figuring out how the Villani actually work to hook the next plot arc, but her finding that sort of intelligence would mean she'd be deeply involved in the empire building. Given her role in developing the improved warp drive she won't be going on any dangerous expeditions, so what else could the story be about?

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And a thing to remember to is this could be a very long term project. She is still rather young and just really starting to hit her stride. She does not need to rush to understand the enemy when she could concentrate on handing the tools to defeat them to the ones actually fighting. She might not get any data on that until after the next war where the Vilani lose and she might get to look at wreckage and captured data cores to see if she can pull anything useful.

 

[Pax Humana]

Okay, to set some reader expectations, the arc I was gelling just fell apart on the planning table. Again. Man, how do other people make these 'empire builder' fics look so easy? They are really not my strength it would seem.

Not abandoning shit this time, just waiting for lightning to strike again like it did for the last two chapters. But yeah, that's gonna be an indetermine wait. Maybe I'll try some other project in the interim to stay fresh and mentally loosen up, if I can think of one.

Sorry.

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Can you describe the issue more? I'm happy to help out as a beta or sounding board, have done so before. Regardless, wishing you best of luck with this and can only emphatically agree with not forcing the story.

 

[OrkKaptin]

Delighted to see this updating again.

Here's hoping you can keep digging when the well threatens to run dry.

 

[Dextority]

Okay, to set some reader expectations, the arc I was gelling just fell apart on the planning table. Again. Man, how do other people make these 'empire builder' fics look so easy? They are really not my strength it would seem.

Not abandoning shit this time, just waiting for lightning to strike again like it did for the last two chapters. But yeah, that's gonna be an indetermine wait. Maybe I'll try some other project in the interim to stay fresh and mentally loosen up, if I can think of one.

Sorry.

Click to shrink...

Empire builder fiction generally falls into the situation where one has to decide what kind of empire one wants to build. And I'm not just talking straightforwardly about whether to build an interstellar extra-territorial dystopian megacorporation, but on what basis one is trying to build it, why they are doing that in the first place, and what compromises one might need to face in order to turn it into a reality.

I'm not sure if you're wanting Sophia to be a ruler or if you're more interested in describing how the Terran Confederation (itself a very interesting term to apply to a polity) uses her technology to rule (and probably getting influenced by her or even ending up with her on top whether through hook, crook or even legitimate means). By its very nature such a choice will also determine a lot, as given that you personally seem to like the ideal of a Terran Confederation it's going to be a hard sell to Sophia to exactly rebel with her supertechnology unless they show great deals of incompetence. Which they haven't so far, so that could cause trouble, especially since Sophia doesn't have to ask the question 'but why should I get involved in politics if I'm happy with the direction things are going', but you could still have that happen both narratively and in a Watsonian sense, even on a small individualist level if you don't want to include the possibility that there could be systematic errors with the way of doing things (that aren't seen due to current pressures and might be the result of past compromises).

So the Vilani have clearly massively shaped this world's politics (even if it isn't a Mass Effect situation where they caused this unification) and while a unified Earth might continue, especially since I'm going to guess that they do it decently in your mind, what happens when the Vilani stop being a threat? What happens when that pressure to unify and cooperate disappears, and the reality of competition starts to set in, now that everything seems to be going fine. Now, of course you have all of these unified strictures and standards, which I think both you and I would agree should absolutely keep a unified Terra, but naturally Sophia doesn't know that.

As you've said, nationalist and separatist movements are at a slow boil, so what if some ambitious yet short-sighted politician decides to try and make that a reality? Perhaps continents might stick together but they recede from the UN, keeping their space and colonies to themselves as they finally compete. Or what if a corporation decides that they want to take advantage of it and in this peacetime (in which Victory Disease could set in as they might have little competition), they try to secede or take extraterritoriality. Or even a colony decides to take their independence and won't take no for an answer, after all they might not want to be controlled and taken for all they've got by whatever corporation, nation or supranational organization initially sponsored them, just like the American Revolution.

Hell, as an idea perhaps Sophia could end up visiting a colony that is well-developed enough to have its own culture and scene, with it having important public-facing projects on it, with her getting caught up in the whirlwind of a revolt when an unpopular bureaucratic decision gets pulled. Sure, she might not agree with the rebels but she doesn't have superpowers, so she has to end up working within the system they make or try an escape in order to get back. It doesn't even have to be a revolution, it could just be a revolt that gets inevitably put down or quickly realizes they don't have the resources they think they do.

In terms of how to write this, you do a good job of balancing world building and characterization, but it might be good to separate the two slightly, such as having interchanging perspectives of Sophia as well as those relevant such as friends and foes versus a more world-building interlude (whether that of a history book, news story or even just interludes of people dealing with the issues and solutions going on now). You could look at alternate history stories to take notes on how they write things, obviously taking into account that you're distorting natural sociological processes with her technology.

You've got a lot of room to write here I feel and I really enjoy your world-building so I'm curious to see how it goes next.