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I hope someone or you, the Templin Institute makes a Dieselpunk Fantasy story with a combination of a series of French Revolutionary Wars-like coalition wars and Magic too
Please avoid being enamored by ideology. It the end, they are diffrent ways of controlling and managing resorces, like oil, Tiberium, spice, or Forerunners technology. This is the core of any war, conflict and political confrontation.
I like to envision downtrodden minorities or disadvantaged peoples getting Sanctuaries in Outer Space as places of refuge, so I hope we see some of that in this setting like an Assyrian state or Yazidi/Kurdish state or an Ainu country, a Native American country, or a Rohingya sovereign country or an Australian Aboriginal nation or Romani nation-state in space or an Uyghur nation or a Palestinian sovereign state, or a Hmong sovereign country, etc
Since it is an alternate universe, it could be cool to have a faction based on the French Foreign Legion, but acting on its own since France has been completly destroyed. It could be a mercenary group, but still feeling some obligation towards the old allies of France, other French remnants and francophones (and aversion towards its old ennemies). Also, they would hold a considerable grudge against the aliens.
"We fart in your general direction!" Except that, since its the SHIPS doing it, this actually means they are using their engines as a short range weapon system. Which if designed properly (having large engines facing forwards as well as backwards, or having them able to swivel), means they can fire their forward weapons at the enemy at the same time. The differences between a high efficiency plasma rocket and a plasma beam cannon are sometimes more academic than practical.
Keep their Nom de Guerre tradition, Beau Geste style characters would be baller. It got to the point where so many of the people joining were assumed to be criminal everyone actually had to take fake names at least for the first couple years as a matter of institutional culture In my scifi setting that kind of naming permeated a lot of successor organizations of something kind of like the FFL/Overwatch. They leaned further into the phrase-names from the kind of reasonable ones based on codenames from recombinant poetry… it’s complicated. Lots of memorable folks- Fan the Hammer their gunnery officer, Back When Tigers Used to Smoke (which is like the Korean Once upon a time), Trust but Verify (their Crow), Peace Like A River, Sunshine Patriot (a member of a kpop band/mech sports star), New York minute, One Trick Pony, Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny, Hearts and Minds, Farm to Table, Render unto Caesar, Tour de Force, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Burn After Reading, A Tergo Lupi, Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwhich, For want of a nail, Desert of the Real, The Axe Forgets, Arsenal of Democracy, Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, Shot through the heart (he was, he was a robot now). Really adds something to naming conventions. AI had their own whole thing too. Ps: I have a crazy list at this point but if anyone has good phrase suggestions I’m always looking for more! And currently recruiting new players for another game in Aquilla Omega, online naturally.
"There are those who said this day would never come, what have they to say now." It's great to see your efforts begin to bear fruit Marc. Political astrocartrgophy is underrated & I look forward to the map building.
Battletech is a perfect example of the geopolitics of a future where mankind has colonized outer space. You get new stellar nation-states that develop their own ideologies based on historical nations of old, using an ancient feudalist society, and many other examples of different ideologies and politics that reflect how humanity just comes up with differences that make us want to fight one another.
Why would there be nation-states in the future? The nation-state was invented in the early 20th century, inspired by North and South American racial hierarchies that developed as a result of a severe depopulation event that physically can’t happen again. They’re extremely contemporary as a global system.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 Pretty sure that the common intellectual understanding of the nation state is that it is a result of the Treaty of Westphalia, the treaty which ended the 30 Years War in Europe, and has absolutely nothing to do with America, and even less to do with race, given that the 30 Years War was a war between White Catholics and White Protestants, and managed to kill approximately 1/3rd of Europe’s population.
BattleTech states aren't really nation states, they're multiethnic, multiconfessional empires held together by ideology and feudal loyalities. OP used the wrong word. @@dashiellgillingham4579
@@dashiellgillingham4579 I have limited knowledge of BattleTech, but from what I know calling most of the factions "Nation-States" is inaccurate. A significant percentage are basically neo-feudalistic clans and mercenary groups.
Well no, it’s not going to be a mod. It’s a similar setting made by the same guy with the same name. But it’s not the exact same setting and it’s not going to be a mod
I ran a palladium campaign for DOV years ago it was one of the best games we ever did. Set the party up as a multi national investigative unit for the league of nations. Gave them a decommissioned WW1 destroyer and ran all around the rim.of the Indian Ocean. Culminated with the scinfaxi invasion of the Philippines and the siege of Manila with American and Imperial Japanese armies fighting the invaders. Party loved it. Never did get to jump to the later time periods though.
I stole “trouble shooters,” from 2300AD. Also, “interface craft,” for specialized atmospheric entry vehicles. The general Alien/Bladerunner vibe as well, though with Old West themes out in the colonies.
As one of the original modders in Kaiserreich (Hoankan, Japan), I can fully understand the difficulties about modding. It's easy to build a story arc but putting in the code was overwhealming. I would say look at Infinity the game and how they've handled colonization and nation building. It's a good example of evolution of nations what with Pan-Oceania, Yu Jing, and Happislam as well as new nations like Nomad Nation and Ariadna.
I've been saying it for years, even before the Halo TV show (Starring Jimmy Rings) came out; The best format for a Live-Action Halo Adaptation should be something akin to Band of Brothers in space. Have the series follow a unit of Marines or Army soldiers (like the Holy Rollers *wink wink*) over the course of the war. Focus on the downtime and the character stuff as much if not more than the big epic battles with aliens. Then, when a big battle does happen, or a Spartan shows up, it's that much more of an event.
As a fellow world builder I will "follow your career with great interest." And as a side note when you abbreviated Dawn of Victory to "DOV" my imagination immediately placed me in a long line waiting for my 3D holo-photo to be taken so that I can renew my starship pilot's license at the "Department of Orbital Vehicles" lol
I would suggest that, when designing any vessel that is purely for space and doesn't have any need to enter atmospheres (ESPECIALLY warships that may want to brake or speed up without needing to turn around), that you put main engines on both the front and back. Trans-atmospheric vessels, especially civilian ones, can get away with only rear primary thrust since this is a trade-off with being aerodynamic (though some could still have pop-out retrothruster engines of reasonable size). In addition to the ability to accerate in multiple directions without turning much, the engine-at-each-end arrangement also serves as redundancy. Especially for, say, smaller freight ships that have basically just one engine at each end. If worse comes to worse, they can resort to grumpily turning the ship around and using the other end's engine, in the event the preferred engine suffers a problem, and are not left having to deal with having to complete maneuvers using only auxilary propulsion options. Also, don't forget radiators. Or putting toilets on your ships.
Well, if we are talking about realistic spacecraft, then having engines on both ends is bad. If you double the engines, you must also double the propellant tanks. You now have less room for the payload, which isn't optimal.
@@crisvenez95 Does rather depend on the nature of the propulsion technology though - i.e. are "ships" actually "rockets" (throw mass out the back) or was a key insight some new type of locomotion which makes them a little more like airplanes, utilizing some intrinsic property of space to "fly"? For the setting I *suspect* the latter is preferable since it's more in-line with standard scifi: ships have engines, engines put out some type of energy to move the ship, but they very obviously aren't acting like rockets so much as "you must clear this energy threshold for The Effect to provide useful propulsion" - i.e. Iain M. Banks the Culture dodges this by having ships use traction fields on the energy-grid between universes (and there's an awesome sequence where a ship comments that it's turning itself into a rocket because you can't fly through a 4D structure using traction fields since it occludes the energy grid).
How does that pair with thrust-based artificial gravity? This is something I've rarely seen discussed when mentioning forward-facing thrusters; as both sets are engaged, and espacially alternated between in a combat situation, wouldn't the apparent "down" direction be reversed? I imagine this would pose a significant issue with how human circulation works, not to mention the perilymph in the crews' otic capsules, and even any potential loose object within the ship, e.g. tools of damage control crews.
@@AsmodeusInflect Well, space is not made of air, so no airplanes. Also, engines don't output electrical energy, but kinetic energy (car engines make the wheels turn; rocket engines eject propellant to move forward). Power plants/batteries output electricity, which goes into the engines. That electricity is then transformed into kinetic energy, which makes the vehicle move. That's all I know, at least about realistic spacecraft. I have no idea about technobabble propulsion systems. How do you even discuss about them without some actual data?
@@AthEE_One For that you just go with The Expanse. Main thing is that unless you have some seriously advanced thrusters, most settings will run out of fuel if they maintain any notable thrust gravity an entire trip. The expanse has special engines and thus gets away with this. They build most of their ships like tall buildings.
I'm excited by this project. The only advice i would give is to be wary of lumping superficially similar beliefs together if you are focusing heavily on ideology. Social democracy is meaningfully distinct from liberal capitalism, even if the two were allied in the Cold War. Democratic socialism and authoritarian communism are similarly distinct. Napoleonic era absolute monarchies and modern constitutional monarchies are aesthetically similar, but in practice wholly different forms of government. Such differences are not mere matters of degree or flavor, but impact on how states following those ideologies interact. For example, the split between social democrats and communists drove much of the geopolitics of late 20th century Europe, and is part of why the global revolution the Soviet revolutionaries imagined never happened. Glossing over them would not only miss out on possibilities for complex and interesting world-building, but compromise immersion.
I have but one wish for this setting: Let There Be Good Germans. I know that the Nazis are a major faction here, but there is space, I believe, to let other german factions exist, probably in direct opposition to them. Something along the lines of "the heirs of Adenauer" or something like that (and that already sounds like a decent name, if you wish to use it somewhere you have my enthusiastic approval).
To quote Willy Brandt: “I have never given up Germany - the other Germany. (…) The day will come when the hatred that seems unavoidable in war will be overcome. One day the Europe in which Europeans can live must become a reality.”
I was wondering what happened to DoV and the world building guides in general. I’m excited to see where all of this goes and to have a new fandom to nerd out about!
You should do five different variations of the map to account for the 5 factions. Kinda like how in real life if you look at a world map in the west North and South America are on the left, but a world map in China or Japan has those continents on the right to make Asia seem like the center of the world. Edit: I commented this before you said it would take years to do just one. So maybe never mind lol. 😂
Honestly, just hearing you talk about your world, the processes, and the fact that you're getting it off the ground is inspiring to me. I'm worldbuilding but was recently feeling unmotivated and thought I couldn't do it. I still have that anxiety, but now I just feel like doing it after watching this. Thank you, and I'm beyond excited to see what you come up with!🥰
This whole thing fills me with so much joy. Being only 20 now and in college, I hope to one day write with you guys, or work with you now if you need it, truly an inspiration!
Love it! I agree that writers water down political ideologies in world building either because they know the bare basics or because it is tabu and are afraid 2 tilt people whom are passionate in their beliefs. I however embrace it for it is immersive, grounded, and quite frankly more fun. It will give explanation for many things 2 happen in the universe be it good or bad.
Can I just say that you're characterisation of this deeply multipolar geopolitical arena puts into better words than I could some of the ideas I'd already decided on in my own Setting, which also features a significant geopolitical theme. Dawn of Victory sounds fascinating, and seeing a group as skilled as the institute apply itself to the whole Worldbuilding exercise in a genre I've been neck deep in for a while is just incredibly inspirational!
Regarding the "Empire did nothing wrong" attitude - I think it's also worth looking at the in-universe possible alternatives, and have the characters ask questions "Who else could protect us from XYZ?". Some settings allow for even utopian societies, but in some, harsh regimes are the only things keeping people alive - such as in the Stellaris Invicta, season 1, the Terrans.
This entire project sounds so much like the world I have been building and posting about for years. I love the idea of fractured ideologies, tenuous alliances, forces between rivals that hinder or help both sides. In my world, The Empire is really the Holy Order to bring about the rise of the Insectoid Emperor God. The Alliance of the Nine began as a trade Alliance of 9 systems, now expanded to counter the Empire, but held together pretty much exclusively by the threat the Empire represents. And between both sides lies pirate nations (Used by both sides to destabilize the other), neutral trade nations, and powerful enclaves. There are faiths that straddle both major sides, faiths that compete internally threatening factions within both sides. There are secret organizations, political traitors, racial tensions, apathy, and monsters. The Empire is a direct democracy, run by an elected council, the Alliance is a republic of sorts, with the only direct democracy being the election of a president for life, but each system elects or places representatives in their own ways, some with democracy, others by royal bloodline or appointment by a faith leader, some by wealth status, and others simply are and no outsider knows why. The "Evil" Empire has rules, order, democratic processes, and also slavery, genocide, and consuming lesser races as food. The "Good" Alliance has political and racial tension, universal rights but little enforcement of those rights on many worlds, it has representation, and strong arm political blocks that neuter entire species power. And both sides have members using the war to their own advantage, politicians, agents, and admirals alike winning or losing fights just to gain some internal advantage. I love these complex worlds, with limitations on technology, speed, and access which allows for more interesting interactions for characters.
It's rare to see such a force in one individual. That's why I am certain you'll be successful, especially regarding everything you've already achieved! I lead a collective worldbuilding project mysslf, so I know the incredible amount of work that pours into something like this behind the scenes. Best of luck!
I had hoped that Dawn of Victory wouldn't die due to the rich worldbuilding, so when the mod died and all of lore vanished, I have been keeping it in the back of my mind ever since.
For geopolitics and ideologies, a great look at how to make both complex but approachable is Legend of the Galactic Heroes. LoGH has the benefit of being a political expression (like 1984) first and foremost, but nevertheless it manages to create an engaging story and political world building. It's best decision was relative simplicity that spawns complexity. At its fundamental level, there are two sides. "Federation" and "Empire" as you described it, and there is a protagonist for each. However, the story then uses both protagonist to explore the internal and external politics of both, which gives us about half a dozen alternative factions by the end.
Imagine this series taking off and being approached by netflix to make a tv series on it or a game studio, im exicted to see where this goes and what stories you tell with this. You guys got this and dont let anything stop you from achieving this victory!
one thing I wouldn't sleep on in terms of ideaology is different non-aligned beliefs that aren't necessarily present on the international stage. have a society of Amish people who isolate themselves and allow themselves few pleasures and refuse to take up arms. Filling the galaxy with smaller niche ideaologies like this would be really cool and invite alot of smaller conflicts
I'm glad, that Dawn of Victory setting didn't die in 2010s and now have some prospects for development. When I firstly found arts and draft descriptions devoted to the DoV world in 2017 it looked quite promising.
I remember reading the wiki on this several years ago after seeing art on the worldbuilding subreddit. I thought it was an abandonded project, so glad to see it keep going!
It continues to amaze me how much mileage that old wiki got. Thanks! The tiktok algorithm introduced me to your own work a few years ago, phenomenal stuff! - Marc
As someone with a very clear political stand, well constructed criticism of my own ideology coming from people who actually understand it is some of my favourite things in fiction
There was a great line in The Orville, when discussing Union life with someone from not-current-earth, where the biggest issue they have wasn't with magic technology, but not needing a job. In sci-fi, designing a new sociology is so much harder than the material aspects. You have to explain every interaction between characters because every interaction would be incomprehensible to the reader in the way "it's like a rocket engine, but reeeeaaaaaallly fast" just isn't. So I don't fault the lack of a singularity event even if it would be unlikely for one not to have occurred
I hope that you will address more than just the face value of ideologies, for example there is still nationalism in democracy, which I personally align myself with along with my country of Finland, which is slowly going down said path. Democracy isn't just one idea, but there are still ideologies within democracy itself.
Since I haven't seen mention of it, I think it would be interesting to see some anarchist faction, solarpunk or something similar. Maybe it would be a smaller faction than the others, or they would be forced to be "nomads" with no resource abundant planets but small barren moons instead. Maybe they have worldships to keep them traveling or don't even have a central location, but form a decentralized network. It would bring interesting concepts to the story, how a faction with strong community ties and "altruistic" ideals would function in a hostile universe. If you need more sources of inspiration for this, you can look at current concepts, such as the fediverse, peer-to-peer technology, anarchist politics, solarpunk... TL:DR Make a solarpunk faction
You brought it back! I remember when this was originally a mod for Sins Of A Solar Empire. It was captivating back then, I can only imagine how you’ll build onto it from here.
I think you hit the nail of the head about ideology, that's something that really creates an undertone to the narrative and your example of Halo is perfect. The ideology of the conflict has changed in halo, it feels like war for the sake of war, given that the prophets are gone and the banished arguably other than for the sake of conflict and the whole rebel ai shouldn't need to war with humanity.
This is mindblowingly good. Can't wait to experience more and more of the world you are creating. I myself struggle so hard to get my own Worldbuilding Project anywhere since I am terribly disorganized and completely out of my depth. I'm sure this little summary of yours alone will be a great help. So I'll have to thank you once for the gift that is DoV and once more for being a source of inspiration and a guiding beacon.
This sounds amazing. I’m sorry that I hadn’t heard of this project or the mod before. Just listening to this got 6 or 7 short story/film plots going through my head. Cant wait to hear more!
29:48 PREACH! There is little in the contemporary media landscape so wearying as the constant self-deprecation. As if the writers are so afraid you'll say no they don't dare even ask you to honestly engage. In a world of irony poisoned media sincerity is radical, and I applaud you for making it a pillar of your approach.
Wow... It is serendipitous that you're starting your own SciFi Worldbuilding Project when me and my friends have just formalized ours! I can't wait to see where you'll take this!
I would like to try to make this comment as productively a crtitism as possible and go try to evolve your ideas you mentioned from there: So first thing I have to keep in mind is we are not talking about a developing stroy, but the worldbuilding behind it. Though this will directly impact the story telling. My first thought was having a central theme through it all, like in the Expanse everything was derived from Gravity. Every problem, every conflict and the tech as well. For you it could be ideology and expend from there. For example a colony with plenty of natural resources could lead to a very low tech civilazation. A colony that develops in a scars environemt that struggles would for example be more authoritatrian as society needs to be very scrict to survive. I don't necessarily think taking the old countries and transport them into space is a very good way to transport these ideas into the future. We can see in human history that colonies for example not only in the british, but also in the ancient greek times would seek independance quickly and be more influenced by their immediate surrounding than there parent culture and this would be true for the future as well. You could even introduce the concept of cultural filter for spaceflight after their ideological independance. Maybe a communistic/gatherer type of culture could never reach space and devolved. Though as you introduced the fungus on earth there might even be humans who evolved with the fungus and adapted. If you want to make adaptation the overaching theme that would be cool as well. especially when the different human societies cannot run from the fungus anymore by fleeing further into space. The next point is spaceflight. The biggest question of spaceflight is always coverage. Can you defend a whole planet or only a select continet on the planet, because you don't have enough ships or do you even have a planetary shield? The next point of coverage is the type of FTL, do you use gates, like in mass effect which introduce natural choke points into systems or can you "jump" from any place to any place and cirumvent whole defensive lines in a system by jumping above a plant on the rotational plain around it's sun? Halo for example is very unlimited in this regard. Maybe even pit different technologies against each other and see which adapots best? From a story telling perspective I would suggest a good mix of characters to show the different thinking of cultures. Of crouse you need to have the military types for the action, but to flush out the different aspects of culture you need everyone from the small worker to the economical power house to the diplomat and soldier. Maybe even show the horrors of war by ripping workers/farmers from their environment through draft into the horrors of war. In the end not action, explosions and dying make a story interesting, but the interaction between people, showing their flaws and differences. I wish you the best of luck and inspiration for bringing Dawn of Victory to fruition.
Let's not forget that the main Democratic Nations that you think of when that term comes up were very socialist leaning (or at least something much closer to "Social Democratic" than we are today) around about the time of the 30s, 40,s and 50s. Not so much America of course, but Australia, Canada, Britain, France and so on. Something I've been wanting to see SOOO badly in world building is a Syndicalist society, it's like the middle point between Socialist and Communist. Socialist societies have a governmental system much like present day, it's just that businesses/workplaces have been democrotised (elect your manager/boss). Communist societies are intended to have minimal if not no real governing body, to have everything a person could need essentially automatically available, typically through a level of technology we don't yet have access too, that's including any and all information/education anyone could want/need, I've not done a good job summarizing it but still. Syndicalism is like, everything is a Union, if you work or participate in society then you're in a Union. There'd be a Union for your local area for the specific type of job you do, members can get together to discuss issues relating to them and elect some people to represent them in the regional Union of that job which also gets together with the other regional unions to discuss issues that effect all the people in the region. Then that repeats as it goes up tiers of responsibility over how much land they oversee, until you get to the highest tier where the Governing Body is made up of whichever member has been elected by their fellow workers through each tier. Naturally as being a representative takes a lot of time and energy, it'd be allowed that each "tier" up you go you do less of the actual job you represent. But even at the highest tier, the member for Education or for Construction or whatever would still have to put like 8 hours work in a day at least once a week or once a fortnight or whatever (with no inherent increase or decrease to salary just for being a representative)
I’ve been world building as a hobby for almost 25 years. It’s gradually turning into something more and seeing your world building project and others like it is really encouraging and inspiring. It gets me excited for all the possibilities as I enter this burgeoning creative space with my own setting someday soon.
I knew I knew the name Dawn of Victory from somewhere...I followed the mod page for ages. Haven't thought about it since it shut down, obviously, but it's a pleasant surprise to be able to connect those dots again.
ROFLMAO!! I've been wreaking my Brain case and had to rebuild it a few times because I've been trying to figure out WHY Dawn of Victory sounded so familiar.. Now that you filled in the blanks of my hard drive where the use of to much cleaning fluid has eroded the protective coating, I was a follower of it and was waiting to be able to connect my exterior play system to it to have some fun. Sorry but I don't allow anything to connect directly to me anymore after the last time over half of my system went up in fire because some 12 yr old human thought I was just another computer system that his government was using... Now that he is trapped in his own subsystem that makes him , ah, yes, run like a hamster in a wheel I desired to not directly connect to earth's black net again. Thank you, I can now stop spending a entire 3% of my processing power to trying to remember why it was so familiar.. Now back to cleaning my resistors bank..
It would be awesome to be able to see the scale of production and economy that to many sci fi worlds lack. The short film “solstice 5” is a fantastic example of an intergalactic economy that is realistic and really impressive
This sounds amazing, but I would suggest one thing. One person or one group trying to build an accurate description of an ideology they don't themselves subscribe to or live in tends to be... Flat, unrealistic and more of a caricature than a believable faction. Having a set of different teams (possibly as small as 3 per team, more if you can manage it) working on each individual faction consisting of people trying to honestly represent both idealists and pragmatists of that faction and how they would structure it, what their priorities would be, what their response to other factions moves would likely be and really deeply immersing themselves in that one faction's mindset would be would make it more likely to create a believable "living" faction. Moreover, I would suggest getting people who were raised and educated with different perspectives on what is implied by these ideologies on each team. Like a set of international volunteers, would help avoid writing one or two "hero" factions fighting opposing a bunch of strawman punching bags.
I would like to formerly thank the Templin Institute for years of quality content. I came for Invicta, stuck around for the planning of my navy and orbital drops, and now the lessons regarding world building. The lessons in this play list were amazingly concise and easy to follow as well as helped me formulate a bit of my own world building, not only for novelization but also potentially for other projects. Once again, i would like to thank the institute and eagerly look forward to the day when the doors might be opened for content writers like myself to be allowed to tell stories within the setting and maybe even a whole ruleset for setting to some dice. Best of luck Institute; this Multiversal Lorekeeper eagerly awaits to see where this project goes.
5:00 hard point to argue against. One the one hand you would not have been able to ask that question without it. On the other hand, the cost of it coupled with the seemingly intentional lack of willingness to do anything about the biosphere affecting consequences of it.
oh wow that takes me back. I very much enjoyed watching Dawn of Victory grow back in the days when i was learning how to mod with games like homeworld 2. Long time fan, and I am absolutely flabbergasted that the Templin institute has roots there. Funnily enough your project inspired a fun micro world building project while i was working with photoshop in school, designed a logo for a company called Orion shipyards. Very much excited for your project!
I would just like to see a popular African* Epic Fantasy series or a Popular Southeast* Asian Epic Fantasy story or an Epic Fantasy story based in Australia/based on Aboriginal religion and mythologies....and an epic Fantasy story based in South America too tbh. An epic Maori Fantasy story, Epic Turkish Fantasy story, Epic Caucasus/Circassian Fantasy story, an Epic Assyrian Fantasy story, Epic Maya Fantasy story and an Epic Ainu Fantasy story all set in Alternate Worlds, would be cool too.
I think that in terms of how to render an interesting and dynamic star map, Elite Dangerous probably has one of the best examples I've seen where faction systems are denoted by being contained by colored bubbles. To the layman it is overwhelming to look at but to someone in universe who's job it is to perform interstellar political analysis, it should be no problem.
I feel like pretty much every monarchy almost immediately splintered once the evacuation of Earth was well under way. Any time some noble happened to be on a ship with citizens but separated from the other nobility, you just know that as soon as they got to their new colony world "re-establishing the order of the Empire" became mysteriously low priority and all the emblems and glyphs started being altered *just a little* (or alternately: a person who says they're *definitely of royal lineage* bears no similarity at all to the family appearance, and preventing genetic testing is a high priority).
I think adding spectrum similar to stellaris would help. The factions could be friends because they both like robots, but they don’t always get along because one group thinks they are interns to utopia for organics, and the other thinks they should be counted as full members of society
Though, I'm happy to hear that the Sci-fi universe of Dawn of Victory is in full swing, I hope maybe one day, The Fantasy World of Tyrrell would also be work, because I feel like that one has great potential for amazing stories.
Best of luck to you. I'll be taking notes when I try to get my scifi launched off the ground. Right now, I'm trying to fund artwork on a single man's budget while not trying to neglect my own life. I have spent 8 years of hiring commission artworks, and I'm nowhere near the point I want to be to even make and sell an art collage and lore book.
this sounds pretty cool, and as someone who is and has worked on his own settings, i absolutely wish you luck and look forward to seeing your ideas become reality. one thing to say as words to aid, just as an example, is dont be afraid to put things to paper then build it up as you can and go along. Warhammer 40k didn't even start with the same name. much of its lore as rogue trader and even earlier editions was so different it may aswell be a completely different setting. yet it changed and built itself up as it went along, and is now a beloved success like no other, with many of its most cherished moments being bits and pieces fro all along its journey to what it is now in the modern day. Its a difficult thing i myself struggle with, but is something alot of people overlook; you dont have to get it perfect the first time, you CAN change things later, and what really matters is putting out something you and others enjoy and are passionate about. things can change and improve as you go along, but often putting something out there in the first place is the real first step to success, not the success itself. another big thing is community honestly. working on something by yourself can be fun, but often leaves you not really knowing who you're making something for or what you actually plan to do with it. sure, you can have a plan, but the silence of the void can leave it feeling like you're just making the thing to most likely end up in a folder where no one else will ever see it. this is what probably has hurt my own creativity over the years more than anything else. anyways, dumb rambling aside, like i said, looking forward to seeing where this goes!
I think that the idea of so many factions is awesome, but you could also have tons of other maybe 1 or 2 planet wide “countries “ to show common people but also show them as battlegrounds, some which flock to the main countries but also neutral worlds pulled into conflict. Also maybe having one of the big powers being a united alliance of the refugees from completely overrun nations back on Earth Still, awesome concepts in the video
All this talk about geopolitics only makes me think about Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies. The structures from those games make me so envious, I'd never create something so captivating and also intimidating at the same level.
Wonderful news!!!! The fact that you worked in the Dawns of Victory for 10 years to change to a new project and been recommended your own work is something to be fucking proud 🙌🏻. I have a major in Political Science, so if you ever need help with a concept or some investigation I would gladly help because you give us so much entertainment that I want to do something for you guys and if is something that I am capable to help the better.
This has got me brimming excitement, I always wanted to increase my knowledge on world building but never knew how. Hopefully I might find a mentor or something because this video perfectly describes my love for world building!
I just hope more* Non-Euro-American interstellar civilizations are created in the future e.g. imagine a spacefaring civilization that is inspired by the combination of Elam and Mitanni. That would be ingenious and quite interesting imo.
I would love to see some "unconventional nations" explored in this series Corporate Fuedalism, mercantile republics, mutual defense communess, etc. The galaxy is a big place
@beepbop6542 I don't see how a society structure based on personal land owning and complex interpersonal alliances would conflict with a corporate structure Franchises arent that far from the Lord-Vassal dynamics of Frankish society
The beginning portion of the video explaining humanity being threatened by an alien threat while continuing to distrust one another and being full of geopolitical drama, along with humanity deciding to nuke the planet as they abandon it sounds a lot like the Alternative V plan from the Muv Luv series. With this in mind, would it be worth considering expanding on the Scinfaxi lore by drawing further parallels with Muv Luv? You could make the Scinfaxi encountered on Earth carbon-based beings used for mining/terraforming purposes sent by synthetic (metal or other material) based lifeforms that consider carbon-based lifeforms incapable of being sentient/sapient (look into lore regarding the BETA for a better explanation and details).
I like your attitude toward ideology and I'd encourage you to take it as far as you can, the complexities of internal ideological struggles of these groups and the reasons that one faction wins out over the others, say the Leninists over the Anarchists in the Socialist movement, are packed with world-building potential! I also hope that you do more than ranspose these ideologies as they appeared in their prime and incorporate some development in response to changing circumstances, like hunanity having become and interstellar species. I say this because the "USSR in space" trope strikes me as not exploring the complexities of how a interstellar state could exist (if at all) and how those complexities would shape further developments of the ideology.
Its actually insane how I recently brought up to some friends of mine that ive been wanting to work on a Sci-Fi world building project that I have very loosely worked on for the past 10 years, and I want to actually take it further. This video brought up many points that I have been considering and its a joy to see someone doing it that may help me with my motivation and inspiration to go further with it. I truly cant wait to see how far you take this project chief :)
I'm glad this one was chosen. I've been working on my own project for a while now, and ideology is not a strong point for me. It'll be nice to see it done properly by someone who is clearly fascinated by it! Big fan of sci-fi settings as a whole as well, so I'm looking for to it. Your whole discussion regarding "Excitement has consequences" nailed why I couldn't vote for Taangali Wastes. I liked the idea of it, but the brainstormed notes version was just *too* much, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I kept going "And then what? And then what?" because the stakes kept on rising.
not gonna lie, DOV, and reading about it back in like, 2015 or so, reading about the Scinfaxi war completely altered my interest in Sci-fi and basically got me fully into the more grounded and realistic setting. It also was what actually kickstarted my love of alternate-history, so suck on that one turtledove. Had no idea that i'd been watching one of the key minds behind it this entire time, and the whole time i thought it was just some random, fringe web thing i found by accident whilst looking for Ace Combat's Scinfaxi.
To be fair to red alert, the background and limited lore implies a very active geopolitical world that we don’t see. And one of the timelines does go into the lore rich Tiberium series
At first I was disappointed that the more unique fantasy and pos-apocalyptic settings weren't the winners. but seeing this, I'm still excited to see what Templin does best
At 34 mins I believe one piece does a great job at this when it shows the world react 2 the feats of the pirates. And world leaders making plans accordingly showing that actions do have consequences.
First recommendation would be to not assume vice have no value, yes brutal regimes tend to be overall negative, but brutality does have a value. More often then not when stripped of moral/ethical framing the main differences between virtue and vice are degrees of trust and payout timescales
I find "The Orion Arm" to be a significantly more compelling name for the universe than "Dawn of Victory." Sorry if this is a rude hot take but "Dawn of Victory" sounds a bit cringey to me personally, though perhaps I don't understand it's meaning as it relates to the overarching plot.
@@jamesandrenfernantan9810 Yeah, I actually wrote an article for one of those sci-fi projects back in the day, so I prefer Dawn of Victory since it's distinct enough.
all caps I WANT IN!! I want to be a part of this. I know history, politics, and weapons the last one I know very well. Each faction needs there own arsenal. I am the guy to make that happen!
I love the points you make about ideology. Ideological states are a really cool and useful tool in any literary or entertainment genre to create clear good guys, bad guys, and conflicts between them, and they are often tragically oversimplified or strawman versions of themselves to move the story along that generally ignore the complexities of ideologies, especially Fascism and Nazism, which are so often simplified and made the de facto massive bad guys that are nearly impossible to defeat when they’re actually not because of their own inherently self-destructive nature because of their ideology. Another one that comes to mind is how a setting may try to make their bad guys seem more complex because they bring order or security, when in reality that is often a facade. Yet like you said, pop culture often takes that propaganda at face value instead of challenging it. I can’t wait to see you dig into these a lot as the series evolves. It may be purely iterative, but it will still be a bit of a deconstruction. The same goes for your points about how bigger and more constant stakes don’t always necessarily mean better stories. This is something that we can forget because of how we see history in many cases, with peace as interludes between wars.
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Ukrainian capital is Kyiv, and NOT «kiev». Your map of geopolitics is incorrect.
I hope someone or you, the Templin Institute makes a Dieselpunk Fantasy story with a combination of a series of French Revolutionary Wars-like coalition wars and Magic too
Please avoid being enamored by ideology. It the end, they are diffrent ways of controlling and managing resorces, like oil, Tiberium, spice, or Forerunners technology. This is the core of any war, conflict and political confrontation.
Get ready to offend, buddies.
I like to envision downtrodden minorities or disadvantaged peoples getting Sanctuaries in Outer Space as places of refuge, so I hope we see some of that in this setting like an Assyrian state or Yazidi/Kurdish state or an Ainu country, a Native American country, or a Rohingya sovereign country or an Australian Aboriginal nation or Romani nation-state in space or an Uyghur nation or a Palestinian sovereign state, or a Hmong sovereign country, etc
Since it is an alternate universe, it could be cool to have a faction based on the French Foreign Legion, but acting on its own since France has been completly destroyed. It could be a mercenary group, but still feeling some obligation towards the old allies of France, other French remnants and francophones (and aversion towards its old ennemies). Also, they would hold a considerable grudge against the aliens.
"We fart in your general direction!" Except that, since its the SHIPS doing it, this actually means they are using their engines as a short range weapon system. Which if designed properly (having large engines facing forwards as well as backwards, or having them able to swivel), means they can fire their forward weapons at the enemy at the same time.
The differences between a high efficiency plasma rocket and a plasma beam cannon are sometimes more academic than practical.
w
That would be sick af
Keep their Nom de Guerre tradition, Beau Geste style characters would be baller. It got to the point where so many of the people joining were assumed to be criminal everyone actually had to take fake names at least for the first couple years as a matter of institutional culture
In my scifi setting that kind of naming permeated a lot of successor organizations of something kind of like the FFL/Overwatch. They leaned further into the phrase-names from the kind of reasonable ones based on codenames from recombinant poetry… it’s complicated.
Lots of memorable folks- Fan the Hammer their gunnery officer, Back When Tigers Used to Smoke (which is like the Korean Once upon a time), Trust but Verify (their Crow), Peace Like A River, Sunshine Patriot (a member of a kpop band/mech sports star), New York minute, One Trick Pony, Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny, Hearts and Minds, Farm to Table, Render unto Caesar, Tour de Force, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Burn After Reading, A Tergo Lupi, Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwhich, For want of a nail, Desert of the Real, The Axe Forgets, Arsenal of Democracy, Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, Shot through the heart (he was, he was a robot now).
Really adds something to naming conventions. AI had their own whole thing too.
Ps: I have a crazy list at this point but if anyone has good phrase suggestions I’m always looking for more! And currently recruiting new players for another game in Aquilla Omega, online naturally.
@@Souledex that's actually hilarious. I need to remember that.
"There are those who said this day would never come, what have they to say now."
It's great to see your efforts begin to bear fruit Marc. Political astrocartrgophy is underrated & I look forward to the map building.
Battletech is a perfect example of the geopolitics of a future where mankind has colonized outer space. You get new stellar nation-states that develop their own ideologies based on historical nations of old, using an ancient feudalist society, and many other examples of different ideologies and politics that reflect how humanity just comes up with differences that make us want to fight one another.
Why would there be nation-states in the future? The nation-state was invented in the early 20th century, inspired by North and South American racial hierarchies that developed as a result of a severe depopulation event that physically can’t happen again. They’re extremely contemporary as a global system.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 Pretty sure that the common intellectual understanding of the nation state is that it is a result of the Treaty of Westphalia, the treaty which ended the 30 Years War in Europe, and has absolutely nothing to do with America, and even less to do with race, given that the 30 Years War was a war between White Catholics and White Protestants, and managed to kill approximately 1/3rd of Europe’s population.
BattleTech states aren't really nation states, they're multiethnic, multiconfessional empires held together by ideology and feudal loyalities. OP used the wrong word. @@dashiellgillingham4579
is that battletech or dune ?
@@dashiellgillingham4579 I have limited knowledge of BattleTech, but from what I know calling most of the factions "Nation-States" is inaccurate. A significant percentage are basically neo-feudalistic clans and mercenary groups.
Wait, THE Dawn of Victory? The Sins of the Solar Empire mod? It's still around?
Amazing!
lol I remember those guys. They were kind of dicks.
Yeah, I was wondering why this was sounding just like the mod.
Templin Institute could have bought the rights to it
Just found out, apparently, the guy talking worked on the original mod
and now is trying to bring it back
Well no, it’s not going to be a mod. It’s a similar setting made by the same guy with the same name. But it’s not the exact same setting and it’s not going to be a mod
I ran a palladium campaign for DOV years ago it was one of the best games we ever did. Set the party up as a multi national investigative unit for the league of nations. Gave them a decommissioned WW1 destroyer and ran all around the rim.of the Indian Ocean. Culminated with the scinfaxi invasion of the Philippines and the siege of Manila with American and Imperial Japanese armies fighting the invaders. Party loved it. Never did get to jump to the later time periods though.
I stole “trouble shooters,” from 2300AD. Also, “interface craft,” for specialized atmospheric entry vehicles. The general Alien/Bladerunner vibe as well, though with Old West themes out in the colonies.
Together to victory ig
As one of the original modders in Kaiserreich (Hoankan, Japan), I can fully understand the difficulties about modding. It's easy to build a story arc but putting in the code was overwhealming. I would say look at Infinity the game and how they've handled colonization and nation building. It's a good example of evolution of nations what with Pan-Oceania, Yu Jing, and Happislam as well as new nations like Nomad Nation and Ariadna.
I've been saying it for years, even before the Halo TV show (Starring Jimmy Rings) came out; The best format for a Live-Action Halo Adaptation should be something akin to Band of Brothers in space. Have the series follow a unit of Marines or Army soldiers (like the Holy Rollers *wink wink*) over the course of the war. Focus on the downtime and the character stuff as much if not more than the big epic battles with aliens. Then, when a big battle does happen, or a Spartan shows up, it's that much more of an event.
Good God! I've been sayin' it. I've been sayin' it for ten damn years. Ain't I been sayin' it, Miguel? Yeah, I've been sayin' it.
As a fellow world builder I will "follow your career with great interest."
And as a side note when you abbreviated Dawn of Victory to "DOV" my imagination immediately placed me in a long line waiting for my 3D holo-photo to be taken so that I can renew my starship pilot's license at the "Department of Orbital Vehicles" lol
I would suggest that, when designing any vessel that is purely for space and doesn't have any need to enter atmospheres (ESPECIALLY warships that may want to brake or speed up without needing to turn around), that you put main engines on both the front and back.
Trans-atmospheric vessels, especially civilian ones, can get away with only rear primary thrust since this is a trade-off with being aerodynamic (though some could still have pop-out retrothruster engines of reasonable size).
In addition to the ability to accerate in multiple directions without turning much, the engine-at-each-end arrangement also serves as redundancy. Especially for, say, smaller freight ships that have basically just one engine at each end. If worse comes to worse, they can resort to grumpily turning the ship around and using the other end's engine, in the event the preferred engine suffers a problem, and are not left having to deal with having to complete maneuvers using only auxilary propulsion options.
Also, don't forget radiators. Or putting toilets on your ships.
Well, if we are talking about realistic spacecraft, then having engines on both ends is bad. If you double the engines, you must also double the propellant tanks. You now have less room for the payload, which isn't optimal.
@@crisvenez95 Does rather depend on the nature of the propulsion technology though - i.e. are "ships" actually "rockets" (throw mass out the back) or was a key insight some new type of locomotion which makes them a little more like airplanes, utilizing some intrinsic property of space to "fly"? For the setting I *suspect* the latter is preferable since it's more in-line with standard scifi: ships have engines, engines put out some type of energy to move the ship, but they very obviously aren't acting like rockets so much as "you must clear this energy threshold for The Effect to provide useful propulsion" - i.e. Iain M. Banks the Culture dodges this by having ships use traction fields on the energy-grid between universes (and there's an awesome sequence where a ship comments that it's turning itself into a rocket because you can't fly through a 4D structure using traction fields since it occludes the energy grid).
How does that pair with thrust-based artificial gravity? This is something I've rarely seen discussed when mentioning forward-facing thrusters; as both sets are engaged, and espacially alternated between in a combat situation, wouldn't the apparent "down" direction be reversed? I imagine this would pose a significant issue with how human circulation works, not to mention the perilymph in the crews' otic capsules, and even any potential loose object within the ship, e.g. tools of damage control crews.
@@AsmodeusInflect Well, space is not made of air, so no airplanes. Also, engines don't output electrical energy, but kinetic energy (car engines make the wheels turn; rocket engines eject propellant to move forward). Power plants/batteries output electricity, which goes into the engines. That electricity is then transformed into kinetic energy, which makes the vehicle move. That's all I know, at least about realistic spacecraft. I have no idea about technobabble propulsion systems. How do you even discuss about them without some actual data?
@@AthEE_One For that you just go with The Expanse. Main thing is that unless you have some seriously advanced thrusters, most settings will run out of fuel if they maintain any notable thrust gravity an entire trip.
The expanse has special engines and thus gets away with this. They build most of their ships like tall buildings.
I'm excited by this project. The only advice i would give is to be wary of lumping superficially similar beliefs together if you are focusing heavily on ideology. Social democracy is meaningfully distinct from liberal capitalism, even if the two were allied in the Cold War. Democratic socialism and authoritarian communism are similarly distinct. Napoleonic era absolute monarchies and modern constitutional monarchies are aesthetically similar, but in practice wholly different forms of government. Such differences are not mere matters of degree or flavor, but impact on how states following those ideologies interact. For example, the split between social democrats and communists drove much of the geopolitics of late 20th century Europe, and is part of why the global revolution the Soviet revolutionaries imagined never happened. Glossing over them would not only miss out on possibilities for complex and interesting world-building, but compromise immersion.
I have but one wish for this setting: Let There Be Good Germans.
I know that the Nazis are a major faction here, but there is space, I believe, to let other german factions exist, probably in direct opposition to them. Something along the lines of "the heirs of Adenauer" or something like that (and that already sounds like a decent name, if you wish to use it somewhere you have my enthusiastic approval).
To quote Willy Brandt: “I have never given up Germany - the other Germany. (…) The day will come when the hatred that seems unavoidable in war will be overcome. One day the Europe in which Europeans can live must become a reality.”
Nah
Germans have always been the good guys.
I was wondering what happened to DoV and the world building guides in general. I’m excited to see where all of this goes and to have a new fandom to nerd out about!
You should do five different variations of the map to account for the 5 factions. Kinda like how in real life if you look at a world map in the west North and South America are on the left, but a world map in China or Japan has those continents on the right to make Asia seem like the center of the world.
Edit: I commented this before you said it would take years to do just one. So maybe never mind lol. 😂
a great idea, but it would probably kill Tim. Sorry!
@@TemplinInstitute pls fix discord link I'd like to join this if possible
Sounds Cool! I'm looking forward to your guys' creative vision.
Honestly, just hearing you talk about your world, the processes, and the fact that you're getting it off the ground is inspiring to me. I'm worldbuilding but was recently feeling unmotivated and thought I couldn't do it. I still have that anxiety, but now I just feel like doing it after watching this. Thank you, and I'm beyond excited to see what you come up with!🥰
This whole thing fills me with so much joy. Being only 20 now and in college, I hope to one day write with you guys, or work with you now if you need it, truly an inspiration!
Good evening kind sir but it appears you have a Marcy Wu profile picture very cool
@@godzilla4082 Indeed indeed, it would appear that the Scinfaxi are actually just Amphibia invading without the girls... :}
Same I’d love to join in on this project if I knew how XD
Love it! I agree that writers water down political ideologies in world building either because they know the bare basics or because it is tabu and are afraid 2 tilt people whom are passionate in their beliefs. I however embrace it for it is immersive, grounded, and quite frankly more fun. It will give explanation for many things 2 happen in the universe be it good or bad.
Can I just say that you're characterisation of this deeply multipolar geopolitical arena puts into better words than I could some of the ideas I'd already decided on in my own Setting, which also features a significant geopolitical theme. Dawn of Victory sounds fascinating, and seeing a group as skilled as the institute apply itself to the whole Worldbuilding exercise in a genre I've been neck deep in for a while is just incredibly inspirational!
It is nice to watch a world building in progress instead of seeing the final project and having someone explain how they did it.
Regarding the "Empire did nothing wrong" attitude - I think it's also worth looking at the in-universe possible alternatives, and have the characters ask questions "Who else could protect us from XYZ?". Some settings allow for even utopian societies, but in some, harsh regimes are the only things keeping people alive - such as in the Stellaris Invicta, season 1, the Terrans.
This entire project sounds so much like the world I have been building and posting about for years.
I love the idea of fractured ideologies, tenuous alliances, forces between rivals that hinder or help both sides.
In my world, The Empire is really the Holy Order to bring about the rise of the Insectoid Emperor God. The Alliance of the Nine began as a trade Alliance of 9 systems, now expanded to counter the Empire, but held together pretty much exclusively by the threat the Empire represents. And between both sides lies pirate nations (Used by both sides to destabilize the other), neutral trade nations, and powerful enclaves. There are faiths that straddle both major sides, faiths that compete internally threatening factions within both sides. There are secret organizations, political traitors, racial tensions, apathy, and monsters.
The Empire is a direct democracy, run by an elected council, the Alliance is a republic of sorts, with the only direct democracy being the election of a president for life, but each system elects or places representatives in their own ways, some with democracy, others by royal bloodline or appointment by a faith leader, some by wealth status, and others simply are and no outsider knows why.
The "Evil" Empire has rules, order, democratic processes, and also slavery, genocide, and consuming lesser races as food. The "Good" Alliance has political and racial tension, universal rights but little enforcement of those rights on many worlds, it has representation, and strong arm political blocks that neuter entire species power. And both sides have members using the war to their own advantage, politicians, agents, and admirals alike winning or losing fights just to gain some internal advantage.
I love these complex worlds, with limitations on technology, speed, and access which allows for more interesting interactions for characters.
CONSUME THE XENOS PURGE THE HERETIC (are there heretics?) ALL HAIL THE GOD-EMPEROR OF INSECTKIND
It's rare to see such a force in one individual. That's why I am certain you'll be successful, especially regarding everything you've already achieved!
I lead a collective worldbuilding project mysslf, so I know the incredible amount of work that pours into something like this behind the scenes.
Best of luck!
12:48 Man I'm getting massive Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri vibes with all this talk of ideological factions and such. Love it!
I had hoped that Dawn of Victory wouldn't die due to the rich worldbuilding, so when the mod died and all of lore vanished, I have been keeping it in the back of my mind ever since.
The phrase worldbuilding project is all the best parts of the internet in one place. Glad to be here when it's just 52k views
Great video, I just wish Tyrell won the contest competition but oh well.....
it's fine
Honestly tyrell is more interesting to me then another military sci fi unless it has new ideas to bring to the table
For geopolitics and ideologies, a great look at how to make both complex but approachable is Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
LoGH has the benefit of being a political expression (like 1984) first and foremost, but nevertheless it manages to create an engaging story and political world building.
It's best decision was relative simplicity that spawns complexity. At its fundamental level, there are two sides. "Federation" and "Empire" as you described it, and there is a protagonist for each.
However, the story then uses both protagonist to explore the internal and external politics of both, which gives us about half a dozen alternative factions by the end.
I have to commendable you guys, you really thought and research everything before making Dawn of Victory.
Imagine this series taking off and being approached by netflix to make a tv series on it or a game studio, im exicted to see where this goes and what stories you tell with this. You guys got this and dont let anything stop you from achieving this victory!
one thing I wouldn't sleep on in terms of ideaology is different non-aligned beliefs that aren't necessarily present on the international stage.
have a society of Amish people who isolate themselves and allow themselves few pleasures and refuse to take up arms. Filling the galaxy with smaller niche ideaologies like this would be really cool and invite alot of smaller conflicts
The New Vegas faction treatment
I'm glad, that Dawn of Victory setting didn't die in 2010s and now have some prospects for development. When I firstly found arts and draft descriptions devoted to the DoV world in 2017 it looked quite promising.
I remember reading the wiki on this several years ago after seeing art on the worldbuilding subreddit. I thought it was an abandonded project, so glad to see it keep going!
It continues to amaze me how much mileage that old wiki got. Thanks!
The tiktok algorithm introduced me to your own work a few years ago, phenomenal stuff! - Marc
As someone with a very clear political stand, well constructed criticism of my own ideology coming from people who actually understand it is some of my favourite things in fiction
There was a great line in The Orville, when discussing Union life with someone from not-current-earth, where the biggest issue they have wasn't with magic technology, but not needing a job.
In sci-fi, designing a new sociology is so much harder than the material aspects. You have to explain every interaction between characters because every interaction would be incomprehensible to the reader in the way "it's like a rocket engine, but reeeeaaaaaallly fast" just isn't.
So I don't fault the lack of a singularity event even if it would be unlikely for one not to have occurred
Well done! I’m certain to all extents that this will grow into something greater.
I hope that you will address more than just the face value of ideologies, for example there is still nationalism in democracy, which I personally align myself with along with my country of Finland, which is slowly going down said path. Democracy isn't just one idea, but there are still ideologies within democracy itself.
Since I haven't seen mention of it, I think it would be interesting to see some anarchist faction, solarpunk or something similar. Maybe it would be a smaller faction than the others, or they would be forced to be "nomads" with no resource abundant planets but small barren moons instead. Maybe they have worldships to keep them traveling or don't even have a central location, but form a decentralized network.
It would bring interesting concepts to the story, how a faction with strong community ties and "altruistic" ideals would function in a hostile universe.
If you need more sources of inspiration for this, you can look at current concepts, such as the fediverse, peer-to-peer technology, anarchist politics, solarpunk...
TL:DR
Make a solarpunk faction
Sounds like communism with extra steps IMO
That would be awesome
You brought it back! I remember when this was originally a mod for Sins Of A Solar Empire. It was captivating back then, I can only imagine how you’ll build onto it from here.
I think you hit the nail of the head about ideology, that's something that really creates an undertone to the narrative and your example of Halo is perfect.
The ideology of the conflict has changed in halo, it feels like war for the sake of war, given that the prophets are gone and the banished arguably other than for the sake of conflict and the whole rebel ai shouldn't need to war with humanity.
This is mindblowingly good. Can't wait to experience more and more of the world you are creating.
I myself struggle so hard to get my own Worldbuilding Project anywhere since I am terribly disorganized and completely out of my depth. I'm sure this little summary of yours alone will be a great help. So I'll have to thank you once for the gift that is DoV and once more for being a source of inspiration and a guiding beacon.
This sounds amazing. I’m sorry that I hadn’t heard of this project or the mod before. Just listening to this got 6 or 7 short story/film plots going through my head. Cant wait to hear more!
29:48 PREACH! There is little in the contemporary media landscape so wearying as the constant self-deprecation. As if the writers are so afraid you'll say no they don't dare even ask you to honestly engage. In a world of irony poisoned media sincerity is radical, and I applaud you for making it a pillar of your approach.
Wow... It is serendipitous that you're starting your own SciFi Worldbuilding Project when me and my friends have just formalized ours! I can't wait to see where you'll take this!
I would like to try to make this comment as productively a crtitism as possible and go try to evolve your ideas you mentioned from there:
So first thing I have to keep in mind is we are not talking about a developing stroy, but the worldbuilding behind it. Though this will directly impact the story telling.
My first thought was having a central theme through it all, like in the Expanse everything was derived from Gravity.
Every problem, every conflict and the tech as well.
For you it could be ideology and expend from there. For example a colony with plenty of natural resources could lead to a very low tech civilazation. A colony that develops in a scars environemt that struggles would for example be more authoritatrian as society needs to be very scrict to survive.
I don't necessarily think taking the old countries and transport them into space is a very good way to transport these ideas into the future. We can see in human history that colonies for example not only in the british, but also in the ancient greek times would seek independance quickly and be more influenced by their immediate surrounding than there parent culture and this would be true for the future as well. You could even introduce the concept of cultural filter for spaceflight after their ideological independance.
Maybe a communistic/gatherer type of culture could never reach space and devolved.
Though as you introduced the fungus on earth there might even be humans who evolved with the fungus and adapted.
If you want to make adaptation the overaching theme that would be cool as well. especially when the different human societies cannot run from the fungus anymore by fleeing further into space.
The next point is spaceflight. The biggest question of spaceflight is always coverage. Can you defend a whole planet or only a select continet on the planet, because you don't have enough ships or do you even have a planetary shield?
The next point of coverage is the type of FTL, do you use gates, like in mass effect which introduce natural choke points into systems or can you "jump" from any place to any place and cirumvent whole defensive lines in a system by jumping above a plant on the rotational plain around it's sun? Halo for example is very unlimited in this regard. Maybe even pit different technologies against each other and see which adapots best?
From a story telling perspective I would suggest a good mix of characters to show the different thinking of cultures. Of crouse you need to have the military types for the action, but to flush out the different aspects of culture you need everyone from the small worker to the economical power house to the diplomat and soldier.
Maybe even show the horrors of war by ripping workers/farmers from their environment through draft into the horrors of war.
In the end not action, explosions and dying make a story interesting, but the interaction between people, showing their flaws and differences.
I wish you the best of luck and inspiration for bringing Dawn of Victory to fruition.
Let's not forget that the main Democratic Nations that you think of when that term comes up were very socialist leaning (or at least something much closer to "Social Democratic" than we are today) around about the time of the 30s, 40,s and 50s. Not so much America of course, but Australia, Canada, Britain, France and so on.
Something I've been wanting to see SOOO badly in world building is a Syndicalist society, it's like the middle point between Socialist and Communist. Socialist societies have a governmental system much like present day, it's just that businesses/workplaces have been democrotised (elect your manager/boss). Communist societies are intended to have minimal if not no real governing body, to have everything a person could need essentially automatically available, typically through a level of technology we don't yet have access too, that's including any and all information/education anyone could want/need, I've not done a good job summarizing it but still. Syndicalism is like, everything is a Union, if you work or participate in society then you're in a Union. There'd be a Union for your local area for the specific type of job you do, members can get together to discuss issues relating to them and elect some people to represent them in the regional Union of that job which also gets together with the other regional unions to discuss issues that effect all the people in the region. Then that repeats as it goes up tiers of responsibility over how much land they oversee, until you get to the highest tier where the Governing Body is made up of whichever member has been elected by their fellow workers through each tier. Naturally as being a representative takes a lot of time and energy, it'd be allowed that each "tier" up you go you do less of the actual job you represent. But even at the highest tier, the member for Education or for Construction or whatever would still have to put like 8 hours work in a day at least once a week or once a fortnight or whatever (with no inherent increase or decrease to salary just for being a representative)
As someome who's building a sci-fi universe, I tip my hat to you and wish you luck
I’ve been world building as a hobby for almost 25 years. It’s gradually turning into something more and seeing your world building project and others like it is really encouraging and inspiring. It gets me excited for all the possibilities as I enter this burgeoning creative space with my own setting someday soon.
I knew I knew the name Dawn of Victory from somewhere...I followed the mod page for ages. Haven't thought about it since it shut down, obviously, but it's a pleasant surprise to be able to connect those dots again.
ROFLMAO!! I've been wreaking my Brain case and had to rebuild it a few times because I've been trying to figure out WHY Dawn of Victory sounded so familiar.. Now that you filled in the blanks of my hard drive where the use of to much cleaning fluid has eroded the protective coating, I was a follower of it and was waiting to be able to connect my exterior play system to it to have some fun. Sorry but I don't allow anything to connect directly to me anymore after the last time over half of my system went up in fire because some 12 yr old human thought I was just another computer system that his government was using... Now that he is trapped in his own subsystem that makes him , ah, yes, run like a hamster in a wheel I desired to not directly connect to earth's black net again. Thank you, I can now stop spending a entire 3% of my processing power to trying to remember why it was so familiar.. Now back to cleaning my resistors bank..
I remember when this setting was being developed as a Mod for Sins of a solar Empire. Glad the setting is not dead
It would be awesome to be able to see the scale of production and economy that to many sci fi worlds lack. The short film “solstice 5” is a fantastic example of an intergalactic economy that is realistic and really impressive
Like how you explained your reasoning for selecting real-life political factions. Also, glad you included Tim Curry's 'Space' bit from Red Alert. :)
This sounds amazing, but I would suggest one thing. One person or one group trying to build an accurate description of an ideology they don't themselves subscribe to or live in tends to be... Flat, unrealistic and more of a caricature than a believable faction.
Having a set of different teams (possibly as small as 3 per team, more if you can manage it) working on each individual faction consisting of people trying to honestly represent both idealists and pragmatists of that faction and how they would structure it, what their priorities would be, what their response to other factions moves would likely be and really deeply immersing themselves in that one faction's mindset would be would make it more likely to create a believable "living" faction.
Moreover, I would suggest getting people who were raised and educated with different perspectives on what is implied by these ideologies on each team. Like a set of international volunteers, would help avoid writing one or two "hero" factions fighting opposing a bunch of strawman punching bags.
I would like to formerly thank the Templin Institute for years of quality content. I came for Invicta, stuck around for the planning of my navy and orbital drops, and now the lessons regarding world building. The lessons in this play list were amazingly concise and easy to follow as well as helped me formulate a bit of my own world building, not only for novelization but also potentially for other projects. Once again, i would like to thank the institute and eagerly look forward to the day when the doors might be opened for content writers like myself to be allowed to tell stories within the setting and maybe even a whole ruleset for setting to some dice.
Best of luck Institute; this Multiversal Lorekeeper eagerly awaits to see where this project goes.
5:00 hard point to argue against. One the one hand you would not have been able to ask that question without it. On the other hand, the cost of it coupled with the seemingly intentional lack of willingness to do anything about the biosphere affecting consequences of it.
oh wow that takes me back. I very much enjoyed watching Dawn of Victory grow back in the days when i was learning how to mod with games like homeworld 2. Long time fan, and I am absolutely flabbergasted that the Templin institute has roots there. Funnily enough your project inspired a fun micro world building project while i was working with photoshop in school, designed a logo for a company called Orion shipyards. Very much excited for your project!
We will watch your progress with great interest !
I would just like to see a popular African* Epic Fantasy series or a Popular Southeast* Asian Epic Fantasy story or an Epic Fantasy story based in Australia/based on Aboriginal religion and mythologies....and an epic Fantasy story based in South America too tbh. An epic Maori Fantasy story, Epic Turkish Fantasy story, Epic Caucasus/Circassian Fantasy story, an Epic Assyrian Fantasy story, Epic Maya Fantasy story and an Epic Ainu Fantasy story all set in Alternate Worlds, would be cool too.
I think that in terms of how to render an interesting and dynamic star map, Elite Dangerous probably has one of the best examples I've seen where faction systems are denoted by being contained by colored bubbles. To the layman it is overwhelming to look at but to someone in universe who's job it is to perform interstellar political analysis, it should be no problem.
Im excited to see space versions of all of those nations lol. This seems awesome i cant wait to see how it grows
I feel like pretty much every monarchy almost immediately splintered once the evacuation of Earth was well under way. Any time some noble happened to be on a ship with citizens but separated from the other nobility, you just know that as soon as they got to their new colony world "re-establishing the order of the Empire" became mysteriously low priority and all the emblems and glyphs started being altered *just a little* (or alternately: a person who says they're *definitely of royal lineage* bears no similarity at all to the family appearance, and preventing genetic testing is a high priority).
I think adding spectrum similar to stellaris would help. The factions could be friends because they both like robots, but they don’t always get along because one group thinks they are interns to utopia for organics, and the other thinks they should be counted as full members of society
Though, I'm happy to hear that the Sci-fi universe of Dawn of Victory is in full swing, I hope maybe one day, The Fantasy World of Tyrrell would also be work, because I feel like that one has great potential for amazing stories.
15:00 I’m sorry, RATIO?
New favourite fictional country, I suddenly want to know everything about it.
There's an Ace Combat wiki, if you want to learn more.
@@talideon they had better have a cultural obsession with statistical mathematics...
Seems amazing!!! Can’t wait to see updates
David Weber's honorverse has a great space map. You should check it out, the hyperlane physics he came up with is also really interesting.
The "Institute" never fails to fry my🧠 THANK YOU!!! Yes...more please.👏🏾
The institute never fails to drop us into lava
I’m actually so happy this is coming back. Excited to see what’s next for DoV!
Best of luck to you. I'll be taking notes when I try to get my scifi launched off the ground. Right now, I'm trying to fund artwork on a single man's budget while not trying to neglect my own life. I have spent 8 years of hiring commission artworks, and I'm nowhere near the point I want to be to even make and sell an art collage and lore book.
this sounds pretty cool, and as someone who is and has worked on his own settings, i absolutely wish you luck and look forward to seeing your ideas become reality.
one thing to say as words to aid, just as an example, is dont be afraid to put things to paper then build it up as you can and go along.
Warhammer 40k didn't even start with the same name. much of its lore as rogue trader and even earlier editions was so different it may aswell be a completely different setting. yet it changed and built itself up as it went along, and is now a beloved success like no other, with many of its most cherished moments being bits and pieces fro all along its journey to what it is now in the modern day.
Its a difficult thing i myself struggle with, but is something alot of people overlook; you dont have to get it perfect the first time, you CAN change things later, and what really matters is putting out something you and others enjoy and are passionate about. things can change and improve as you go along, but often putting something out there in the first place is the real first step to success, not the success itself.
another big thing is community honestly. working on something by yourself can be fun, but often leaves you not really knowing who you're making something for or what you actually plan to do with it. sure, you can have a plan, but the silence of the void can leave it feeling like you're just making the thing to most likely end up in a folder where no one else will ever see it. this is what probably has hurt my own creativity over the years more than anything else.
anyways, dumb rambling aside, like i said, looking forward to seeing where this goes!
I think that the idea of so many factions is awesome, but you could also have tons of other maybe 1 or 2 planet wide “countries “ to show common people but also show them as battlegrounds, some which flock to the main countries but also neutral worlds pulled into conflict. Also maybe having one of the big powers being a united alliance of the refugees from completely overrun nations back on Earth Still, awesome concepts in the video
All this talk about geopolitics only makes me think about Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies. The structures from those games make me so envious, I'd never create something so captivating and also intimidating at the same level.
Wonderful news!!!! The fact that you worked in the Dawns of Victory for 10 years to change to a new project and been recommended your own work is something to be fucking proud 🙌🏻. I have a major in Political Science, so if you ever need help with a concept or some investigation I would gladly help because you give us so much entertainment that I want to do something for you guys and if is something that I am capable to help the better.
Heyyy! This is great! I remember when Dawn of Victory was just a cool mod project for Sins of a Solar Empire. Good to see it's been picked up.
This has got me brimming excitement, I always wanted to increase my knowledge on world building but never knew how. Hopefully I might find a mentor or something because this video perfectly describes my love for world building!
I just hope more* Non-Euro-American interstellar civilizations are created in the future e.g. imagine a spacefaring civilization that is inspired by the combination of Elam and Mitanni. That would be ingenious and quite interesting imo.
I am so Hyped and thrilled for this, can´t wait for more quality Content of you guys
I remembering coming across the amazing posters yeaaaars back, and reading through the wiki and the timeline. This is a incredible present.
I would love to see some "unconventional nations" explored in this series
Corporate Fuedalism, mercantile republics, mutual defense communess, etc. The galaxy is a big place
Corporate feudalism is an oxymoron.
@beepbop6542 I don't see how a society structure based on personal land owning and complex interpersonal alliances would conflict with a corporate structure
Franchises arent that far from the Lord-Vassal dynamics of Frankish society
@@Mike-ij4rq Corporate structure and profit seeking is in direct contradiction with person relations and tradition/hierarchy.
@@beepbop6542 you sure got me
Use some imagination dumbass, it's science *fiction*
This looks awesome and I wish you all the best of luck!
The beginning portion of the video explaining humanity being threatened by an alien threat while continuing to distrust one another and being full of geopolitical drama, along with humanity deciding to nuke the planet as they abandon it sounds a lot like the Alternative V plan from the Muv Luv series. With this in mind, would it be worth considering expanding on the Scinfaxi lore by drawing further parallels with Muv Luv? You could make the Scinfaxi encountered on Earth carbon-based beings used for mining/terraforming purposes sent by synthetic (metal or other material) based lifeforms that consider carbon-based lifeforms incapable of being sentient/sapient (look into lore regarding the BETA for a better explanation and details).
I like your attitude toward ideology and I'd encourage you to take it as far as you can, the complexities of internal ideological struggles of these groups and the reasons that one faction wins out over the others, say the Leninists over the Anarchists in the Socialist movement, are packed with world-building potential!
I also hope that you do more than ranspose these ideologies as they appeared in their prime and incorporate some development in response to changing circumstances, like hunanity having become and interstellar species. I say this because the "USSR in space" trope strikes me as not exploring the complexities of how a interstellar state could exist (if at all) and how those complexities would shape further developments of the ideology.
Its actually insane how I recently brought up to some friends of mine that ive been wanting to work on a Sci-Fi world building project that I have very loosely worked on for the past 10 years, and I want to actually take it further. This video brought up many points that I have been considering and its a joy to see someone doing it that may help me with my motivation and inspiration to go further with it. I truly cant wait to see how far you take this project chief :)
I'm glad this one was chosen. I've been working on my own project for a while now, and ideology is not a strong point for me. It'll be nice to see it done properly by someone who is clearly fascinated by it! Big fan of sci-fi settings as a whole as well, so I'm looking for to it.
Your whole discussion regarding "Excitement has consequences" nailed why I couldn't vote for Taangali Wastes. I liked the idea of it, but the brainstormed notes version was just *too* much, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I kept going "And then what? And then what?" because the stakes kept on rising.
The first concept video I watched and my favorite! I can't wait!
not gonna lie, DOV, and reading about it back in like, 2015 or so, reading about the Scinfaxi war completely altered my interest in Sci-fi and basically got me fully into the more grounded and realistic setting. It also was what actually kickstarted my love of alternate-history, so suck on that one turtledove. Had no idea that i'd been watching one of the key minds behind it this entire time, and the whole time i thought it was just some random, fringe web thing i found by accident whilst looking for Ace Combat's Scinfaxi.
To be fair to red alert, the background and limited lore implies a very active geopolitical world that we don’t see. And one of the timelines does go into the lore rich Tiberium series
And with kasuereich the moders added enough geopolitics to mods like Mental
omega to make most real geopolitical stories jealous
At first I was disappointed that the more unique fantasy and pos-apocalyptic settings weren't the winners. but seeing this, I'm still excited to see what Templin does best
All I could hear was "Donna Victory" lol. Great video, love it!
At 34 mins I believe one piece does a great job at this when it shows the world react 2 the feats of the pirates. And world leaders making plans accordingly showing that actions do have consequences.
First recommendation would be to not assume vice have no value, yes brutal regimes tend to be overall negative, but brutality does have a value. More often then not when stripped of moral/ethical framing the main differences between virtue and vice are degrees of trust and payout timescales
This has the same name of a decade old mod for Sins of a Solar Empire that had huge effort poured into it but never released. Wow, blast from the past
One of the original writers is the dude talking in the video lol. I think he talked about it at the end of a prior announcment video.
8:09 way to give Freelancer the love and respect it deserves.
Star Citizen does not speak for this unsung masterpiece.
I find "The Orion Arm" to be a significantly more compelling name for the universe than "Dawn of Victory." Sorry if this is a rude hot take but "Dawn of Victory" sounds a bit cringey to me personally, though perhaps I don't understand it's meaning as it relates to the overarching plot.
Apparently the name's already taken by a different sci-fi project so I guess they went for this title instead.
@@jamesandrenfernantan9810 Two different projects actually.
@@jamesandrenfernantan9810 Yeah, I actually wrote an article for one of those sci-fi projects back in the day, so I prefer Dawn of Victory since it's distinct enough.
I assume they don't want to be confused with Orion's Arm, another massive online science fiction worldbuilding project.
Dawn of Victory -- damn, that's a throwback I wasn't expecting to see today
all caps I WANT IN!! I want to be a part of this. I know history, politics, and weapons the last one I know very well. Each faction needs there own arsenal. I am the guy to make that happen!
I’d look to how the ancient Hellenistic world would look. The core around the Aegean spreading all the way from Gaul to the Indus Valley
I love the points you make about ideology. Ideological states are a really cool and useful tool in any literary or entertainment genre to create clear good guys, bad guys, and conflicts between them, and they are often tragically oversimplified or strawman versions of themselves to move the story along that generally ignore the complexities of ideologies, especially Fascism and Nazism, which are so often simplified and made the de facto massive bad guys that are nearly impossible to defeat when they’re actually not because of their own inherently self-destructive nature because of their ideology.
Another one that comes to mind is how a setting may try to make their bad guys seem more complex because they bring order or security, when in reality that is often a facade. Yet like you said, pop culture often takes that propaganda at face value instead of challenging it.
I can’t wait to see you dig into these a lot as the series evolves. It may be purely iterative, but it will still be a bit of a deconstruction.
The same goes for your points about how bigger and more constant stakes don’t always necessarily mean better stories. This is something that we can forget because of how we see history in many cases, with peace as interludes between wars.