Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2014-11-23 03:21 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-11-23 03:21 pm
[ SECRET POST #2882 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2882 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 061 secrets from Secret Submission Post #412.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Inspired by #8
My books. Published.Fantasy on a world scale. Like not just fantasy!Europe or fantasy!Asia, but a global world in which all cultures have their own stuff going on.
Time travel and alternate dimensions.
Rejection of "destiny" and "the chosen one" as inherent world concepts.
Technology ultimately catching up to and then surpassing magic and the fallout from that.
Re: Inspired by #8
Legend of Korra actually did some of that (and atla), which were some of the things I liked best about the worldbuilding - like the trains run by earthbenders and such.
Re: Inspired by #8
But I guess in both cases, I'd like to see them take it one step farther?
Like for the benders vs non-benders conflict, legitimate points were made, but then turns out Amon was a bender and the entire movement fell apart like that. It be like if Susan B Anthony had secretly been a man in drag, and then the entire suffragette movement fell apart.
And re: technology, I don't think it's so much the magic integrated into tech that I'm as interested in, as it is tech surpassing magic. Like a magical world version of the industrial revolution where people start finding them replaced by machines. Like imagine the train earthbenders, one day they manage to make an electric train that's faster and cheaper than hiring earthbenders and then that whole section of the populace is out of a job. It'd probably be a shift from everyone performing random tasks, to helping out in power plants (which LoK did a little bit with, what with Mako's job). And then even then, who would be more valuable, earth and waterbenders helping spin turbines? Or firebenders with the ability to create electricity right then and there? Which would probably create a wage gap. Which would then inspire resentment. But then with bending rendered such a non-necessity, power plant jobs would probably be seen as blue collar work anyway, with the Varricks of the world slowly rising to power and fame instead.
Re: Inspired by #8
Thing is, earthbenders pushing a stone train is probably immeasurably cheaper than developing and running a steam engine, if you have manpower. Because the train never breaks or runs down, and you need no fuel but the people running it, and it's better for the environment.
We also haven't seen firebenders able to sustain electricity for a long time. If anything I think using benders as "fuel", or say metalbenders in factories, things like that make more sense.
Furthermore, there are still fields where benders would be massively useful, like earthbenders for building.
I agree with you that it could have been pushed way further than it was, though.
Re: Inspired by #8
People need breaks, they need to sleep and eat and drink, and they also get sick. They tear muscles and break bones. People ultimately have limits.
Yes, people are better for the environment, just like horses were better for the environment. And it was probably cheaper to rent a horse to get from place A to place B than create a whole new infrastructure, just like it would be cheaper in the ATLA world to hire an earthbender to power a train to get from place A to place B. But ultimately the cost of one outpassed the cost of the other.
And at the same time, the infrastructure doesn't just pop out of nowhere. Steam engines already existed because the fire nation built them to power all of their stuff (which makes sense because they didn't have water or earthbenders on hand.) Either by scientific curiosity, wartime innovation, or simply need in another sector, technology progress overlaps all sorts of areas.
Re: Inspired by #8
But at the same time, I think that for example for infrastructure, benders would be very powerful tools. When it comes to paving roads, erecting buildings, things like that, earthbenders can do stuff that we won't get to for years to come.
When it comes to experimentation, or even space travel and such, benders have the ability to manipulate the environment when it's dangerous without having to touch. It would also be interesting to see what they could do on the cellular level, for example. I imagine that benders would also still be useful in law enforcement and as first responders of various types and firefighters and such.
Besides, you'd always have parts of the world that are less developed, where people wouldn't have access to technology, but a bender can always be born. I don't think that bending would become obsolete, but I think their place in society would definitely change.
Re: Inspired by #8
(Anonymous) 2014-11-23 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Inspired by #8
(Anonymous) 2014-11-23 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Inspired by #8
Re: Inspired by #8
(Anonymous) 2014-11-23 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)Try the Laundry series by Charles Stross. It's a bit of an odd one to classify, being basically a Lovecraftian horror/spy series set in our world, but the basic conceit is that magic is essentially applied mathematics, and the advent of computers that can do massive computations regularly and on the fly has basically broken the multiverse and placed humanity right in the path of an Elder God emergence like nothing our universe has ever seen. The hero creates magical effects with his palmtop, bone violins with speaker systems destroy demons, basilisk stares have been weaponised as a technology, summoning grids have been updated using lasers, and government agencies use geasa to control and possess their own people. Also, the end of the world is repeatedly nigh, and past a critical mass of human computation, there will stop being a damn thing we can do about it. It's, um, a horrifically pessimistic series at times, but damn if it isn't awesome.