You know I think I would consider After the Fall of the Empire to be the World of the New Age. Because people are less oppressed and there’s opportunity for the little guy to get ahead and the remnants of the old empire are going to be doing everything in their power to hold on to the old ways and the New government is going to do everything it can to eradicate the empire. Thoughts?
Hmm, this feels as such an American selection, with dominant American belief systems. European, Indian, Chinese fantasy may have more range, and where perceived realities about their world may shift. And mixing it up, well that too can become a plastic easy to understand trope. How are Hunger Games and Arcana similar? Also the sad post-apocalyptic worlds full of gun toting ultimate survivors give slowly way to, as also Americans start to see, collaborative positive (re)build up stories. What you describe is much high pressure and or situations where heroic interventions must make all the difference. But I feel a hose of young adult cliches coming out of this. Next video: How to give depth to worlds and characters!
I'm Sixty three, and I am tired of the eternal "America is inferior and limited." mantra. I've read Sci Fi novels from other cultures. What archetypes do you know of that aren't describable by the given archetypes? I've read Sci Fi novels from France, Russia and Japan that fit the first archetype. 1:19 I've read British, German, Brazilian and Italian novels that fit the second archetype. 2:04 I've read French and Czech stories that fit archetype three. 2:12 I've mainly seen archetype four in American, British, and Australian novels. But I've read Arab short stories that fit it. 2:32 Archetype five is universal. 2:56 It should be no surprise that Europeans love to depict America's future as archetype six. 3:32 Archetype seven is also universal. Several African novelists make it a focus. 3:59 Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, wrote an early archetype eight novel. Many Victorian British authors wrote such works. AFTER LONDON is the easiest of these to find. 4:23 19th century continental European Sci Fi breathes this trope. Chinese Sci Fi likes it too. 5:05 Archetype ten seems to be the only one that is exclusively American. From the 19th century on, American popular fiction has had corrupt rich people as key villains. Worlds like Le Guin's THE ONES THAT WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS are very much an American specialty. Although European films have rich people who live in miniature versions of this archetype (where they are the special bad apples) frivolous societies with blood on their hands are an American thing. 5:14 Number eleven is Cyberpunk, although the novel SPACE MERCHANTS is mainly set here. 7:15
@@thomasdevine867 A well explained reply. Here I have a question: "I'm Sixty three, and I am tired of the eternal "America is inferior and limited." mantra." haha, interesting as too many Americans seem still to suffer from the "*Murica is best!" mantra. Also take the survivor archetype. Yes Robinson Crusoe is one. But where he talks and struggles with Friday, we see the American psychopath killer hero standing alone against a horde. Nowadays he best fits either the Western or CIA operatives protecting their country alone, loaded with John Wick skills. And how different is the survivor from number 5 the world where you have to watch your every step, read the paranoia thriller, often again the CIA operative on their toes, oh, they say this with six or seven too. So often the Good skilled guy with a gun fits the picture too. So perhaps it's how the video maker presents it. He tries to make 'm different, in how he tells I hear a lot of similarities.
@KootFloris You speak of the "American psychopath killer," but that archetype wasn't originally American. French novels celebrating master criminals were popular in the mid-19th century. Rocombo started as one of these. He later changed his moral stripes and became the first fictional character that could be described as a superhero. Robinson Crusoe belongs in both archetypes three and five. There was a proto Sci Fi genre called The Robinson. Besides Robinson Crusoe, the best known example is Swiss Family Robinson. The genre was popular in America and commonly part of American Sci Fi. Robinson Crusoe on Mars was an American Sci Fi film. The very first Star Trek pilot "The Cage" made a reference to the Robinson in the lost survivors we are shown at the start of the story.
@@thomasdevine867 Great reaction, though I do not agree the the say Arsene Lupin can be compared to John Wick. The French had tongue in cheek, thrills of adventure. The US cowboy looks bitter and silent in the wind and it's too often all too serious (many exceptions aside). The French seem to play life and even crime. The American version is pioneer against all odds, arm up boys. And the new archetype shows this, check the Beekeeper, The Painter, the Bricklayer, all these former soldiers drawn back into the action and then the killing starts, often beautiful cinematic action yet empty shells selling tough guys as the ultimate positive protector. I miss the anti heroes, who sweat, who feel horrible in a shoot out, who don't have fun quips after a kill. Something died for me inside these tropes.
Ok so, one of my dystopias I made seems to be a world without freedom but for a bizarre reason. The dominant species (very human like) though sapient has no free will. I’ve got a copy of a description of this society here. hand. If they find a person with a matching soul mark they will develop a chemical dependence on each others presence. They also are able to justify anything their partner does to themselves. Soul marks in this setting unlike the soul mark genre of fan fiction do not denote wether people are emotionally compatible. Rather, they denote genetic compatibility. If two soulmates meet they are likely to produce healthy offspring. The biology of soul marks can be used to an abusers advantage. In this setting soulmates can become abusive towards each other. A favored tactic of abusers is to do god awful things to their soulmate and let them justify it in their own heads. Then leave and let the doubts come back as the brain comes down from its high. Then finally come back and start the cycle all over again. Also in this setting they romanticize abuse 50 shades of grey and twilight style. So abused get very little help. Just comments and questions on why they left an ideal romantic relationship. Overall this setting does not understand the idea of romantic love being a bad thing in extreme cases. They also don’t understand abuse and what it does to people. Just a basic synopsis. One thing I don’t think it mentioned was that there are people in this society without soul marks and thus an inability to experience romantic or sexual emotions or soul bond. Now here’s a scenario for you. You have lived your entire life in a society that has told you since childhood that your one goal in life is to basically “find your soulmate, get married, ???, die, profit.” And this is normal to you to the point you aren’t questioning it. Now imagine you become aware of a type of person (to your knowledge more accurately described as a human shaped eldritch abomination) that does not think in that way. Keep in mind you have been taught you have a single purpose in life and this other thing seems to not live for purposes you understand. Obviously you gotta keep this type of thing away from society in case they find purpose in disrupting it. (Which in reality is highly unlikely.) you need to teach these people the correct way to live and the right purpose In life. Then you have a good picture of this society. It is solely kept together by hatred for one specific group of people (the unmarked people mentioned earlier) that they project anything bad onto and the other thing keeping it together is the shared cultural idea that “soulmarks are good. help people find more soulmates.” All to avoid the question of if they have free will. They just assume they do even though many, many abuse victims in this society never think to leave their situation. In reality they are entirely controlled by their biology and subjugate anything that works differently due to paralyzing fear and existential angst. They don’t even research the genetics of soulmarks which would solve a whole lot of their problems. Whether they choose to write up new soul marks for unmarked for the sake of fixing them or they remove soul marks and not romantic and sexual emotions so they do have free will, they chose not to research them because their whole idea of life would collapse if soul marks where (in their mind) meaningless chemicals and not the work of magic, mana, or god.
This is a fascinating world setting / fantasy race! And an interesting commentary on society’s transactional view of romance. Is romance a transaction? Should it be a transaction? Have you looked into romance as having a ‘covenant’ nature? When I read this it looks like a great ‘set-up’. I’m curious to what the ‘pay off’ would be in the story. Clearly, the way you present this world setting, the status quo is not the ideal. So my question is ‘what is the hidden ideal?’ ‘How is it revealed?’ ‘Is it romance at all?’ I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes stories that stand the test of time and the biggest correlation I’ve noticed is when virtue overcomes vice. Take Lord of the Rings for examples. I just watched it recently, so it’s on my mind. Aragorn vice is doubt and he overcomes it with courage in the face of his legacy. Galadriels vice is lust for power and she overcomes it with humility. Sam doesn’t have a vice because Sam is perfect #samwisegamgee2024 Etc So in your world what are the virtues that are overcoming what vices? Thoughts?
@@authorquestso, some context for what I think the hidden ideal is: the current lore I have for this culture they don’t really realize their mistakes. They’re just really stuck in their ways. The only constant they’ve had is soulmarks and how they deal with them has been really limited in recent times due to a state of free travel and “world peace.” (By projecting all of their ills on the unmarked.) it’s a very complicated situation. People mostly get along with their soulmates but the ones that don’t get no help or escape, abusive relationships are not understood as what they are and are often romanticized due to that lack of understanding. The world is at peace but only through a shared hatred and mistreatment of a small group of people. They are a stable society but only through a shared understanding that any changes could make things worse. If unmarked get equal rights then who do they target? In reality there is likely a better system for them but they’re too scared to change for fear of going back to a past of separate nations locked in conflict potentially with soulmates on opposite sides of a war. Finally they make the false though very understandable equivalence that soul marks give things humanity. (It’s kinda my take on the take of shoddy sci-fi that love is what makes a given thing human.) the in universe reasoning is that they are the only animal species with this evolutionary trait. And this trait tends to impair critical thinking after a certain point. In all likelihood they would equate soul marks with humanity. And that is part of the origin for the harsh treatment of unmarked. To them unmarked are a violation of some kind of natural order. Basically they’re settling for a comfortable, stable, but very immoral system due to them fearing something worse. So for your hidden ideal question in all likelihood it’s the idea that comfort zones need to be stepped out of or you may face irrelevancy or you could harm others by never leaving the past. (Not the best wording. I’ll clarify anything needed) As for how it’s revealed it’s more revealed by implication by the fact this society doesn’t move out of their comfort zone even far into the future. Just a quick thing the style of story I want to tell is inspired by the youtuber “Curious Archives” series on the speculative evolution project “Serina” more so just and overview of the wider history with characters being a zoomed in on flash in the pan. My general plan is to make a free use settings wiki for people who come up with characters better than settings. This setting would be one of the settings on there and it could be explored and built on by anybody. Besides I do have a full on story (with characters I somehow managed to make despite being historically bad at making them)
@@authorquest just some things I forgot to mention I haven’t really watched a lot of your channel or read your book. So lot’s of what you said is a bit confusing. So as for romance having the covenant nature I’d have to find out what that means. The other thing I forgot to address is if whatever a soul bond is is really romance. My interpretation is that a soul bond is not the same thing as romance. Mainly cause they don’t get to choose who they are bonded to. The closest real life analog is that of a mind altering substance. Even then, if the brain produced a mind altering high without a substance involved should be considered kosher?
Love it when you use examples to conceptualize the ideas. Keep up the great work!
Thanks! Will do!
Just found this channel and love it, keep up the good work. Can't wait to see this place grow.
Thanks Eli! I appreciate the encouragement
Didn't realize that your brother was behind Writing Quest! I'm already subscribed to that channel. Now I'm subscribing to yours too! Great advice.
Keep up the good work man
Thank you! Will do!
Great Video!
Thanks Aphrodite Lee!
Would a After the Fall of the Empire be too close to After the Apocalypse?
You know I think I would consider After the Fall of the Empire to be the World of the New Age. Because people are less oppressed and there’s opportunity for the little guy to get ahead and the remnants of the old empire are going to be doing everything in their power to hold on to the old ways and the New government is going to do everything it can to eradicate the empire. Thoughts?
Hmm, this feels as such an American selection, with dominant American belief systems. European, Indian, Chinese fantasy may have more range, and where perceived realities about their world may shift. And mixing it up, well that too can become a plastic easy to understand trope. How are Hunger Games and Arcana similar? Also the sad post-apocalyptic worlds full of gun toting ultimate survivors give slowly way to, as also Americans start to see, collaborative positive (re)build up stories. What you describe is much high pressure and or situations where heroic interventions must make all the difference. But I feel a hose of young adult cliches coming out of this. Next video: How to give depth to worlds and characters!
Good take!
I'm Sixty three, and I am tired of the eternal "America is inferior and limited." mantra. I've read Sci Fi novels from other cultures. What archetypes do you know of that aren't describable by the given archetypes?
I've read Sci Fi novels from France, Russia and Japan that fit the first archetype. 1:19 I've read British, German, Brazilian and Italian novels that fit the second archetype. 2:04 I've read French and Czech stories that fit archetype three. 2:12 I've mainly seen archetype four in American, British, and Australian novels. But I've read Arab short stories that fit it. 2:32 Archetype five is universal. 2:56 It should be no surprise that Europeans love to depict America's future as archetype six. 3:32 Archetype seven is also universal. Several African novelists make it a focus. 3:59 Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, wrote an early archetype eight novel. Many Victorian British authors wrote such works. AFTER LONDON is the easiest of these to find. 4:23 19th century continental European Sci Fi breathes this trope. Chinese Sci Fi likes it too. 5:05 Archetype ten seems to be the only one that is exclusively American. From the 19th century on, American popular fiction has had corrupt rich people as key villains. Worlds like Le Guin's THE ONES THAT WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS are very much an American specialty. Although European films have rich people who live in miniature versions of this archetype (where they are the special bad apples) frivolous societies with blood on their hands are an American thing. 5:14 Number eleven is Cyberpunk, although the novel SPACE MERCHANTS is mainly set here. 7:15
@@thomasdevine867 A well explained reply. Here I have a question: "I'm Sixty three, and I am tired of the eternal "America is inferior and limited." mantra." haha, interesting as too many Americans seem still to suffer from the "*Murica is best!" mantra. Also take the survivor archetype. Yes Robinson Crusoe is one. But where he talks and struggles with Friday, we see the American psychopath killer hero standing alone against a horde. Nowadays he best fits either the Western or CIA operatives protecting their country alone, loaded with John Wick skills. And how different is the survivor from number 5 the world where you have to watch your every step, read the paranoia thriller, often again the CIA operative on their toes, oh, they say this with six or seven too. So often the Good skilled guy with a gun fits the picture too. So perhaps it's how the video maker presents it. He tries to make 'm different, in how he tells I hear a lot of similarities.
@KootFloris You speak of the "American psychopath killer," but that archetype wasn't originally American. French novels celebrating master criminals were popular in the mid-19th century. Rocombo started as one of these. He later changed his moral stripes and became the first fictional character that could be described as a superhero.
Robinson Crusoe belongs in both archetypes three and five. There was a proto Sci Fi genre called The Robinson. Besides Robinson Crusoe, the best known example is Swiss Family Robinson. The genre was popular in America and commonly part of American Sci Fi. Robinson Crusoe on Mars was an American Sci Fi film. The very first Star Trek pilot "The Cage" made a reference to the Robinson in the lost survivors we are shown at the start of the story.
@@thomasdevine867 Great reaction, though I do not agree the the say Arsene Lupin can be compared to John Wick. The French had tongue in cheek, thrills of adventure. The US cowboy looks bitter and silent in the wind and it's too often all too serious (many exceptions aside). The French seem to play life and even crime. The American version is pioneer against all odds, arm up boys. And the new archetype shows this, check the Beekeeper, The Painter, the Bricklayer, all these former soldiers drawn back into the action and then the killing starts, often beautiful cinematic action yet empty shells selling tough guys as the ultimate positive protector. I miss the anti heroes, who sweat, who feel horrible in a shoot out, who don't have fun quips after a kill. Something died for me inside these tropes.
Ok so, one of my dystopias I made seems to be a world without freedom but for a bizarre reason. The dominant species (very human like) though sapient has no free will. I’ve got a copy of a description of this society here.
hand. If they find a person with a matching soul mark they will develop a chemical dependence on each others presence. They also are able to justify anything their partner does to themselves. Soul marks in this setting unlike the soul mark genre of fan fiction do not denote wether people are emotionally compatible. Rather, they denote genetic compatibility. If two soulmates meet they are likely to produce healthy offspring. The biology of soul marks can be used to an abusers advantage. In this setting soulmates can become abusive towards each other. A favored tactic of abusers is to do god awful things to their soulmate and let them justify it in their own heads. Then leave and let the doubts come back as the brain comes down from its high. Then finally come back and start the cycle all over again. Also in this setting they romanticize abuse 50 shades of grey and twilight style. So abused get very little help. Just comments and questions on why they left an ideal romantic relationship. Overall this setting does not understand the idea of romantic love being a bad thing in extreme cases. They also don’t understand abuse and what it does to people.
Just a basic synopsis. One thing I don’t think it mentioned was that there are people in this society without soul marks and thus an inability to experience romantic or sexual emotions or soul bond. Now here’s a scenario for you.
You have lived your entire life in a society that has told you since childhood that your one goal in life is to basically “find your soulmate, get married, ???, die, profit.” And this is normal to you to the point you aren’t questioning it. Now imagine you become aware of a type of person (to your knowledge more accurately described as a human shaped eldritch abomination) that does not think in that way.
Keep in mind you have been taught you have a single purpose in life and this other thing seems to not live for purposes you understand. Obviously you gotta keep this type of thing away from society in case they find purpose in disrupting it. (Which in reality is highly unlikely.) you need to teach these people the correct way to live and the right purpose In life.
Then you have a good picture of this society. It is solely kept together by hatred for one specific group of people (the unmarked people mentioned earlier) that they project anything bad onto and the other thing keeping it together is the shared cultural idea that “soulmarks are good. help people find more soulmates.” All to avoid the question of if they have free will. They just assume they do even though many, many abuse victims in this society never think to leave their situation.
In reality they are entirely controlled by their biology and subjugate anything that works differently due to paralyzing fear and existential angst. They don’t even research the genetics of soulmarks which would solve a whole lot of their problems. Whether they choose to write up new soul marks for unmarked for the sake of fixing them or they remove soul marks and not romantic and sexual emotions so they do have free will, they chose not to research them because their whole idea of life would collapse if soul marks where (in their mind) meaningless chemicals and not the work of magic, mana, or god.
This is a fascinating world setting / fantasy race! And an interesting commentary on society’s transactional view of romance.
Is romance a transaction? Should it be a transaction?
Have you looked into romance as having a ‘covenant’ nature?
When I read this it looks like a great ‘set-up’. I’m curious to what the ‘pay off’ would be in the story.
Clearly, the way you present this world setting, the status quo is not the ideal. So my question is
‘what is the hidden ideal?’
‘How is it revealed?’
‘Is it romance at all?’
I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes stories that stand the test of time and the biggest correlation I’ve noticed is when virtue overcomes vice.
Take Lord of the Rings for examples. I just watched it recently, so it’s on my mind.
Aragorn vice is doubt and he overcomes it with courage in the face of his legacy.
Galadriels vice is lust for power and she overcomes it with humility.
Sam doesn’t have a vice because Sam is perfect #samwisegamgee2024
Etc
So in your world what are the virtues that are overcoming what vices? Thoughts?
@@authorquestso, some context for what I think the hidden ideal is: the current lore I have for this culture they don’t really realize their mistakes. They’re just really stuck in their ways. The only constant they’ve had is soulmarks and how they deal with them has been really limited in recent times due to a state of free travel and “world peace.” (By projecting all of their ills on the unmarked.) it’s a very complicated situation. People mostly get along with their soulmates but the ones that don’t get no help or escape, abusive relationships are not understood as what they are and are often romanticized due to that lack of understanding.
The world is at peace but only through a shared hatred and mistreatment of a small group of people. They are a stable society but only through a shared understanding that any changes could make things worse. If unmarked get equal rights then who do they target? In reality there is likely a better system for them but they’re too scared to change for fear of going back to a past of separate nations locked in conflict potentially with soulmates on opposite sides of a war.
Finally they make the false though very understandable equivalence that soul marks give things humanity. (It’s kinda my take on the take of shoddy sci-fi that love is what makes a given thing human.) the in universe reasoning is that they are the only animal species with this evolutionary trait. And this trait tends to impair critical thinking after a certain point. In all likelihood they would equate soul marks with humanity. And that is part of the origin for the harsh treatment of unmarked. To them unmarked are a violation of some kind of natural order.
Basically they’re settling for a comfortable, stable, but very immoral system due to them fearing something worse. So for your hidden ideal question in all likelihood it’s the idea that comfort zones need to be stepped out of or you may face irrelevancy or you could harm others by never leaving the past. (Not the best wording. I’ll clarify anything needed)
As for how it’s revealed it’s more revealed by implication by the fact this society doesn’t move out of their comfort zone even far into the future.
Just a quick thing the style of story I want to tell is inspired by the youtuber “Curious Archives” series on the speculative evolution project “Serina” more so just and overview of the wider history with characters being a zoomed in on flash in the pan. My general plan is to make a free use settings wiki for people who come up with characters better than settings. This setting would be one of the settings on there and it could be explored and built on by anybody.
Besides I do have a full on story (with characters I somehow managed to make despite being historically bad at making them)
@@authorquest just some things I forgot to mention I haven’t really watched a lot of your channel or read your book. So lot’s of what you said is a bit confusing. So as for romance having the covenant nature I’d have to find out what that means.
The other thing I forgot to address is if whatever a soul bond is is really romance.
My interpretation is that a soul bond is not the same thing as romance. Mainly cause they don’t get to choose who they are bonded to. The closest real life analog is that of a mind altering substance. Even then, if the brain produced a mind altering high without a substance involved should be considered kosher?