Subject: re: Hmmm
Author:
Posted on: 2013-06-11 14:50:00 UTC
Well, I did say this was a work in progress, didn't I? Not all of the ideas here will make the cut. And maybe it the personality-cultures are a bit dumb... hm... guess it's back to the word processor...
So I want to be a writer... despite my lack of faith in my writing skills. Still, I have one idea I've been working on-and-off on. Is it alright If I talk about it here?
(Also, sorry about the lack of posts, I've been not feeling up to posting recently...)
*brings out popcorn cookies*
Well, while I'm here...
The setting takes place in the far future/another galaxy (but considering my lack of knowledge of space-y stuff, I'll probably end up fudging the technical aspects) I'm still working out the details, though. Psychics may or may not be included (though the whole "using 100% percent of your brain" thing has been debunked, so another explanation might be utilized).
ALIENS: (note- these are still under work, and I apologize for any unoriginality)
Human- This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Humanity’s role is more or less as a “jack-of-all trades”, as they have taken on multiple roles in multiple fields.
Roon- They are elfin in appearance with maroon skin, all-black eyes and silvery hair. One of the longest-lived raced, many see themselves as "superior" to others... something most find irritating (obviously, I'm not a fan of the "Our Elves are Better/Can't Argue With Elves" tropes)
Trull- Short creatures with pointy ears/horns/tails, they are often mechanically-inclined and erudite, but often lack imagination, take to intensive study and highly-disciplined lifestyles
Tokkar- A race of yellow and black lizard-like aliens known for their aptitude in psychic abilities, though they’re also rather timid, and as such, rarely (if ever), eave their home planet.
Amphibe- Another race that is short in stature, only they resemble a cross between a frog and a newt, and often require frequent moistening to keep from drying out.
Lepida- a race of humanoid butterflies//moths, known for being close-knit, with a conservative nature, a strong sense of family, and very traditional, with a good eye for art.
Sectoid- Another insectoid race, these ones resembling humanoid grasshopper/locust/cicadas, and tend to try to believe in balance and look at both sides of an issue, and are rigidly honorable.
Saurian- a race of humanoid lizards that is well-known for being fierce and proud warriors… and for not being very bright. As such, most of them take up jobs as mercenaries, bounty hunters and space pirates. They are pragmatic, hard-working, strategists, tacticians, culture revolves around efficiency, industry and self-improvement.
Hexxion- a bizarre-looking race that have humanoid upper bodies (albeit covered in armor) with a crab-like lower body, 6 eyes, and 6 limbs on each half of its body. They are very pleasant and friendly, also deeply spiritual, but still scientifically-inclined.
Ferrar- a mix of feline and canine (trying to split the difference here), the males strongly resemble lions while the females look more like wolves. They are conservative, proud, regal, war-like, stubborn, and take great pride in their heritage.
Mossian- the longest-living race that resembles wooden humanoids covered in moss. They are very calm and easy-going, and tend to be very slow-moving. It’s joked that they move so slow because they live so long and have so much time to do so.
Phylum- a race of pastel-colored jellyfish-like race from a planet with low gravity, so they must don protective suits when off their home planet to prevent harm to their squishy bodies. Technically, they are neither male nor female, and reproduce by asexual means.
Tenguri- humanoid birds that are also a proud warrior race that have a caste-based society and live by certain “Virtues” that shape their lives… though not all Tenguri follow this way of life.
Kujaka- resembling peacock-taurs, they are fond of beauty (almost to the point of obsession), rather vain and snobbish. Most of them are merchants of commercial goods, and tend to be cunning & cutthroat, yet also very clever and expert speakers.
Yagitsu- Bearing a close resemblance to sheep/goats, they are very peaceful, spiritual and theocratic without a set leader, and live modest lives live in humble dwellings with only the essentials.
Charchadon- a vicious race or shark-like humanoids that tend to be brutish, ruthless, stubborn, not very bright, superstitious, violent, and aggressive… though there could be exceptions.
Geodar- a race of stone-skinned humanoids that primarily live off a diet of various rocks and minerals. They are strong and stubborn, and nothing short of explosions can move a Geodar when their mind is set on something.
Grem- a race of imp-like creatures living in the lower levels of the city-planet Metropol, this race is seen as vermin by many, and for good reason, as they eat pretty much anything, and their razor-sharp teeth can easily strip flesh from bones. They also tend to horde shiny objects, and have a sort of bartering system between them.
Celphid- hailing from the water planet Midoi, this race of cephalopod aliens. Like the Amphibe, they require frequent mosituring, often spending most of their time in special baths.
Necroix- a race of skeletal-looking humanoids living on the farside of the galaxy that wish to exterminate/conquer all life. They are cold, logical, military-minded, racist, xenophobic, theocratic despots who openly endorse eugenics, are also genetically engineered and raised in military facilities.
Mortu- the pawns of the Necroix race, they are gray-scaled lizard-like aliens that have practically been indoctrinated by their masters for ages. As such, they are ignorant, racist, superstitious, xenophobic, violent, aggressive, and quick to battle.
Andromedian- a race of mysterious energy beings that claim to have been around since the universe began. Not much else is known about them.
This is all I have so far, though details may change. Any ideas are very much welcome.
I like the amount of variety you've got with all the different species, although I do wonder how easy it will be to make sure that they all get a decent amount of 'screen time'.
Similar to what some of the other guys have said, I think that the names and characterisation of the aliens work better as 'this is what humanity refers to them as / tends to think of them as' than being truly representative of the variety that could be present in an entire species. However, I think that a broad generalisation could be appropriate with the insectoid races - if you've got a hive structure with different specialised castes, then it might make sense for their personalities to all be very similar, or even identical.
Following on from that logic, it would mean that humanity as the 'Jack of all trades' is humanity's opinion of itself, it'd be interesting to see if the other races agree with them on that.
Specific thoughts on some of the aliens:
- The Trull being mechanically inclined but lacking in imagination seemed a little off to me at first, as I would normally associate 'mechanically gifted' with being creative, but then I thought that it could make a lot of sense depending on how they interacted with the world. If they've got a range of extra senses, such as microscopic vision, the ability to 'see' magnetic fields, sense the density of materials, etc. then it might be that something nebulous like a new concept that doesn't have any kind of working prototype just wouldn't seem real to them. They could be really good at assessing damage, making copies, making minor improvements, but generally lack the creative thought process for coming up with truly groundbreaking new ideas.
That got me thinking about the other races - humans tend to get most of their information about their environment through sight or sound, is the same true for all of the aliens? Or do some of them have a different priority order (or even have entirely unique senses)?
- Saurians having a reputation for being good fighters, but not being smart, seems like a contradiction to me. I would have thought that in a setting with spaceships and advanced weapons you'd actually have to be pretty intelligent to make it as a (successful) mercenary type. Fair enough, they may not produce many Nobel prize winning physicists or whatever, but I would think that the professions you've said they are inclined towards would actually require a fair bit of intellect and skill. Although again, I think it could make sense if we're just talking about the perception of them rather than the reality.
- You say that the Yagitsu live simple lives with just the basics - are they actually a space-faring race, or do they just live on their homeworld? If they're planetbound, do they actually have much interaction with the other races?
- I like the idea of the Ferrar. Out of interest, are they fully feline/canine in apperance, or are they more anthro (like cat-people)?
- The Hexxion seem pretty cool too, that's a very original body shape that they've got.
Personally, when it comes to sci-fi I'm normally more interested in the technology of the setting than the biology/culture of the aliens, so I'd be quite interested in seeing some details about the spaceships, weapons, etc. of the various races. Have the different races all known about each other, and traded with each other, for long enough that technology is homogenous? Or are there obvious differences between the same type of device produced by different species?
Well, I was thinking of having multiple names for certain races, the problem is figuring out what names to use.
-Oooh, I'll have to keep that one in mind...
-That too.
-Right, that's something else to think about.
-Maybe most of them, do, a few could do missionary work?
-Basically, the males resemble lions, while the females look more like wolves. I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to have feline or canine aliens, so I decided to just split the difference.
-Thanks, I liked how they turned out.
Technology-wise, I'm still working that one out. General stuff like energy shields/weapons, ect.
I'm glad that my ramblings proved to be useful / thought provoking.
I've actually done a bit of betaing for a friend's original sci-fi piece, including helping him firm up some of his ideas - particularly on the technology side, but also some of the social/political stuff. If you're ever looking for someone to bounce ideas off of, I'd be happy to do that for you too.
Well, since they're aliens, psychics could be, well, just psychic. Since you've admitted you're already probably not going to be technical about this, you might be able to just make some things, like why aliens have psychic powers, pass. Not everything has to be explained. Some people forget that.
Okay, now my rundown on these species, one by one, as well as a few of my ideas on what you might do with them.
Human: The idea of humans as a "jack-of-all-trades" species has been used so many times that the concept is pretty stale. However, if there was some reasoning behind why they had been involved in so many fields, it could set up a history, round them out, and make them fit better into the scheme of things.
A lot of people use the "humans are in charge" format to accomplish this, saying that the humans are in so many places because they run the show, but Id go against using that concept, since putting humans in a distant galaxy is basically self-inserting an entire species already and making them in charge when there are several other species who'd be more suited to the role never made sense to me. I'd recommend something in particular, but since I don't know the history behind this universe, I can't really do that.
Roon: The space elf concept is also rather overused, though I like that this universe sees their space elves as the stuck-up twits they tend to be. That could actually be a relatively good springboard for inter-species conflict, since the space elves are, as ever, racist and obnoxious, and for once, the others aren't going to be putting up with their crap. Actually, they might be a better choice for being the Mortu's psychotic slavemasters, since they wouldn't see the oppression of another sapient race as a problem and might just as easily view every other species as nothing more than animals. There could be interesting plot hooks for ideological conflict there.
Trull: I'm seeing a disconnect between being mechanically-inclined and erudite while still lacking mental skill and imagination. Typically, in order to be skilled with machines and other fields of study, one requires some extent of imagination to do so. However, the idea could be taken in a few interesting directions if set up, and I've got two ideas that might be a basis for set-ups.
Idea one: they project the idea of being self-contained and generally unintelligent to hide their true activities, which involve the intense study and mechanical work. Why? I don't know, since this universe's history isn't too familiar to me. Perhaps they have a traditional dislike of outsiders getting involved in their projects, and their expansion into space has made them paranoid of other species meddling with their work. Perhaps they're planning something and don't want anyone else to know what they're up to. Or maybe they just don't like to be pestered, and spreading the idea that they're stupid would make people leave them alone.
Idea two: most of their race is just as unimaginative as suggested, and as such, they are ruled over by a small group of mutant members of their race who possess higher intelligence and mechanical ability. This is a less original idea, but it also has potential, I think. Maybe the mutant leaders could be tied into the propensity of this universe for psychic power, or exhibit traits of psychic abilities themselves. Maybe they're a remnant of a precursor race's failed uplift experiment. Possibilities.
Tokkar: There's not really a lot of information here, but still a few interesting concepts. If they hardly leave their home planet, how did they get well-known for their psychic abilities? How does the rest of the galactic community feel about them and their supernatural powers? And exactly what can their psychic powers accomplish? Telepathy, telekinesis, electrokinesis, teleportation, what? Setting what is possible for a species-wide power set is important, and since these guys appear to be one of the few here that are naturally psychic, they would need to be especially certain of what they are capable of doing.
Amphibe: There's not really much to say about these guys, except for two questions I have How do they stay moist, and what happens if they start to get dry? I'd imagine they might carry around some sort of fluid packs to keep themselves within a recommended moisture range when off-world, but it might need to be a full-body soak. And once they get dry, does their blood start to clot up, do they get slower and weaker, or less intelligent, or something else? If something bad will happen to their race if they're left out in the sun, it's important to establish what it is or at least how bad it is. If it's just the alien equivalent of chapped lips, the stakes are much lower than if it sends them into a coma.
Lepida: This starts to bring up a recurring question I have: Is this what these races call themselves? I mean, if the humans couldn't understand a Lepida's wacky bug-language or a Mossian's plant-pronunciations, and the names were given by humans, that's one thing, but if the aliens name for themselves is a modified term from World One, and that World One-based naming is consistent among multiple races, that's a no-go unless there's a really good reason as to why, and I mean a really good reason.
Also, I agree with what firemagic said earlier about species-wide cultures being a bad thing. One trait being ubiquitous among a race isn't bad, especially if it's something that's a deeply ingrained personality characteristic like their level of aggressiveness or their social ability, but having political views and love of art and the like be universal across an entire species is pretty implausible. Even if it started out like that, differences would start to rise after a few decades/centuries/millennia(I don't know how long your races tend to live) passed and the new generation realized they didn't like to spend their whole day looking at paintings.
One more: What do humanoid moths look like? Are they similar to humans, but with feathery antennae and moth-wings coming out of their backs? Because they would not be able to fly with those, unless the wings were so big they couldn't fit them through human-built doors. Moth wings are fragile and not terribly efficient for a spacefaring race. At least some species could fold them up and protect them behind wing cases or something. Moth wings would just be an encumbrance.
Sectoid: These guys don't really have a lot of description here, and while I like the idea of a knight in shining chitin, they might be better if their cultural idea was merged with the one currently used by the Saurians. Again, just a suggestion, like all of my previous ideas have been, but it could work well. I'll go into detail about that in the Saurian section.
Saurian: Okay, the space elves could be taken in an interesting direction, but lizard-man space pirates that are low in intelligence just invoke a half-dozen clichés that I'm not sure the race could recover from. It doesn't help that their species name is a World One term for a monophylum of reptiles.
Their cultural description was pretty good, though, though I may be biased because when you mentioned efficiency and industry I got a mental image of scenes from Great Depression-era silent movies about factories being played out by lizard people.
Now, the Sectoid bit. You said earlier that the Sectoids tended to be chivalrous and honorable, but what if, instead of just an inborn trait, it was them compensating for the rest of their race? When you mentioned the Saurian race's love of self-improvement, my first thought was of... well, to be fair, I my first thought was of cyborgs, but my second thought was of the potential for cultural conflict that could cause. For them, the lizard-space-pirates, that wouldn't go very far, but if you transplant it to the Sectoids, it starts getting interesting. Possibly there was a series of wars in the past, with their species fighting over concept shifts or possible changes in intra-species affairs, and the losing faction was exiled from the planet. The chivalrous Sectoids wouldn't want to execute their own species, but the losing faction would still be harboring resentment for having lost the war.
After a few conflicts, they would have a large force of exiled dissidents, and while the on-world Sectoids would be as nice and proper as could be in an attempt to make a good impression on the rest of the galactic community, the off-world Sectoids could show even greater shifts and become generally hostile. It would be a nice twist on the typical sci-fi cultural monolith.
Also, if several exile factions were united by a Sectoid warlord, that could make an interesting early-stage conflict. And then maybe the un-united exiles could become the space pirates instead!
Okay, I got a little carried away there, but I like that idea and I might use a variation on it myself. Plus, physically altered sapient cicadas as space pirates. I love that.
Hexxion: Again, not much here, but I like how physically different these guys are. Everyone else is some sort of Intelligent Gerbil, to invoke a TVTropes title, but the Hexxoins are distinctly alien in comparison. Also, that description of their culture is vague enough that it might be able to work as how a species would actually behave, so that's a definite plus.
Ferrar: These guys... need work. The lion-like species being the "noble and proud" species is a cliché as it is, and while I like the sexual dimorphism, most of the rest of them looks like it could easily create potential problems, especially since the description of their culture is another one-personality-for-a-whole-species issue like the Lepidas had.
Mossian: Again, is this what they call themselves? That's actually vaguely insulting for a tree-based being, being compared to non-vascular plants. It'd be like comparing a human to an armadillo or a sloth or something. It doesn't seem like a direct insult, but it would probably make people mad.
They don't really have a lot of details either, but I'm not sure how a slow-moving and slow-reacting species became space-faring. It'd be like seeing Ents on the Enterprise. (The pun was not intended, but I like it now that I see it. It's just so corny.) Are they confined to a single world, like the Tokkar were?
Phylum: These guys need a different name for the same reason the Saurians would have: it is a taxonomic term and makes no sense as a species name. That being said, I like the idea of bright-colored jellyfish walking around in robot exo-suits, and they didn't have a one-personality culture, so they get an approval otherwise. How do the other races react to them, though? Do the Sectoids ever get offended that they refuse to show their faces? Do the Amphibe bond with them over their mutual need for environmental technology to survive off-world? There's possibility for good inter-species dynamics here.
Tenguri: These guys are... well, to put it bluntly, made almost entirely of clichés if that was a good summary of their culture. Castes in a Proud Warrior Race society, said Proud Warrior Race following pre-set laws of what constitutes their honor, bird people being anti-social, and it goes on. I like how they aren't a cultural monolith, though, so they could still be usable if they were rounded out more.
Kujaka: I really like their name, but I have no idea what a peacock-taur is intended to be. Are they half-peacock, half-bull? What does that even look like? I'm imagining feathered cows with beaks, and that is actually fairly off-putting. One-personality culture, again so I don't have a lot to say here other than asking what a species made of two races that have no manipulatory appendages could be a Proud Merchant Race. Do they have tentacles or something in addition to hooves and feathers?
Yagitsu: Not much variance here. I find it difficult to believe that an entire species would take to the shamanistic or nomadic lifestyle, though I can imagine a cultural majority perhaps, with a few splinter groups that embrace the possibilities of galactic society. Also, if they are so isolationist and decentralized, how were they introduced to the galactic community? It doesn't seem like something a species based around living only with "the essentials" would be interested in.
The theocracy idea could be interesting, but again, I'm biased because I like the idea of religious fanatic sheep flying spaceships.
Charchadon: I like the Charchadon. I don't know why, since they seem almost as monolithic as some of the other races were. Maybe it's just the freshness of seeing land sharks in a space-based setting. Also, their name is fun to say. The superstitious and brutal nature of their culture could provide interesting story possibilities, especially if you go the full length and make them a less-than-enlightened race, living separated from the rest of the galaxy due to some turmoil or perhaps never having been introduced to the galactic community.
Perhaps this could bring them in with the more powerful psychic species as their battle-allies. I can see them teaming up with the Andomedians, with each providing a foil for the other's characteristics and rounding them both out, and the Charchodons could act as the hands and eyes of the Andromedians in the galaxy at large, since mysterious energy beings tend not to like interacting with others, and may have taken advantage of the Charchodons' low intelligence and superstitious nature to hold themselves up as gods.
Well, now I know Board posts have a wordcount limit. Continuing on.
Geodar: There's potential here, partially because having rock-creatures be both sapient and a spacefaring species in their own right is a concept I've not seen done often, and I'd like to see what it turns out like. I'd go against just having stone skin, though, since that would make them very vulnerable to anything that can break through rock. I'd recommend going the whole route, with silica blood and stone all the way down, since it seems both more evolutionarily plausible and would make them generally more effective at being big and menacing. Perhaps you could include organic or semi-organic materials at their core, but just having stone skin would pose more problems than it solves.
Celphid: Again, not a lot of details here, so I don't have a lot to say, but if they spend most of their time in special baths, does this affect their spacefaring? It seems to me it would. I'd imagine they strike up a quick trade agreement with the Phylum to get access to their environmental suit technology, so that they'd be able to actually move about unhindered. Plus, a big squid in a robot suit is almost as fun as a jellyfish in a robot suit.
Necroix: No. Just... sigh. The rest are either okay or at least decent as they are, salvageable, or I can see why you thought they would be a good idea. These guys... this is a half-dozen sterotypes given form. The embodiment of "Und you must be ze villain!". They are evil skeletons that are from the "sci-fi mysterious" shorthand "the far reaches of the galaxy", and hate everyone and everything just because. That is a problem.
Genetically engineering super-soldiers could work for some other species, but when it's coupled with all of the ultra-overused villain ideas of the Necroix, it gets buried and looks like another messy detail. Villains do not have to be designated. It's more interesting when they aren't. Yes, there will be villainous factions or even villainous species, but when your first reaction to a new species is "Oh, so these are the bad guys", and they turn out to actually be the bad guys, that's not good.
Now I have an interesting idea for a race of scary Halloween-monster-style aliens that turn out to be the only nice guys in their sector. I'm sure it's been done before, but I'm writing it down next to "political exile cicada space pirates" in the list of ideas I might consider using somewhere.
Mortu: I went over the Mortu a bit in my looking-over of the Roon, but I think they could be salvageable independent of the Necroix. A species that has been forced for generations to think of every species, including themselves, as inferior to the race that breeds them and controls them, could create interesting story possibilities, such as if a few ever broke away and began to sympathize with the races that they were always told were not worth scraping their masters' space-boots.
Andromedian: The "ancient energy being" thing is another cliché, but it's not so stale you can't use it if you make it interesting. Their interaction with other races will be the big deciding factor for whether they're a good idea, so I can't really critique a lot of this.
Wow, that was is a lot of species. I may have made a poor decision critiquing them all at once, and my reviews may have varied in quality and been saturated with my own ideas for what to do with them, but what do you think? What expansions are there? What's the history? How does this universe work? I'd be interested on having details for a few more of these species, if nothing else.
That's a lotta text, thanks for the ideas, I'll keep this in mind.
Notes:
Amphibe/Celphid- Hm... a water-based survival suit? Yeah, that could work.
Mossian/Phylum- Yeah, I guess they could use a different name. Should I just come up with some random word for the name?
Ferrar/Tenguri- I admit these guys could use some work, I'll have to figure something out.
Sectoi/Charchadon- glad you like 'em, I'll see what I can do...
Necroix- ...yeah, I'll probably end up dropping them. They haven't been well-received anyway.
Geodar- alright, I'll see what I can do with it
Mortu- sounds like a neat idea, I'll see what I can do with it too.
Anyway, I'm still working out the details of the universe, I'm just putting out my initial ideas.
The question you need to answer (for yourself) is who is giving the names? To swap from aliens to countries for a moment, you have three main variants:
1/ They gave themselves a name and everyone else uses it to the best of their ability. France and Portugal fit this category, at least in European languages.
2/ The viewpoint species gave them a name which is used by the viewpoint species, and accepted by the aliens as a translation. Germany springs to mind here (since it's Deutchland to a German and Allemagne to the French... and obviously Germany to us).
3/ A combination of the above two, with the viewpoint species attempting to 'normalise' the actual name. I'm thinking Switzerland from 'die Schweiz'. Most places in our world, this comes about through colonisation (Switzerland being a big exception).
Your names look like they're all given by humans, probably before they were able to translate the alien languages. Knowing the human species, I suspect there would be massive agitation to switch to using 'the traditional cultural names rather than those foisted on them by Terrestrial Imperialism'. Here's what I would do (and, actually, have done):
If the aliens speak in sound, and that sound can be reasonably written in the Latin alphabet, transliterate their own name for their species. My example is the Gr-kra-kro, who are apparently three-legged blue reptiles. I also have the Sh'krrform, who are also reptillian, and whose name is probably a corruption of their actual name for themselves (with that 'form' likely coming from 'frrrrm' or something).
Of course, some of these names could be massively corrupted or coopted into English. My planet Marigold must have its own name, and its inhabitants are humanoid, but I figure humans heard something that sounded vaguely English (Barricoln, perhaps?) and just latched onto it. There probably is a movement to switch to the proper name (and to stop calling the inhabitants 'Goldies', since it's a racial slur...)
On the flip side, if you have some really alien species, in that they're either unwilling to actually talk to us at all (ie, implacably hostile), or don't use sound to communicate, humans would have to invent names for them. My Arcadians are technicolour fountains of tentacles who communicate through the motion of those tentacles - it's completely unwritable, so we called their planet Arcadia, and them after it. They don't seem to mind.
And:
Should I just come up with some random word for the name?
Heavens, no. If humans are naming things, we tend to choose something with meaning. Often we name things after their discoverer, or after some property of it (neutrino, anyone?). So a human-given name would have some form of meaning.
A name given by a species to itself, on the other hand, will probably have no meaning any more ('human' just means, y'know, us), but will come out of the linguistic background. We would never have called ourselves 'Karcadasonarians', because we don't like long nouns. Equally, we couldn't have named ourselves H't'prrgs, because we can't pronounce it. If a species' language has lots of hissing (as is common for reptilian aliens), their name for themselves will probably be full of Ses - they wouldn't call themselves Krogs. If a species habitually smashes words together to add meaning to them, they may have a 27-syllable name for themselves - 'we who rose from the mountains east of the great desert and drove our flocks before us to the fertile lands we claim as our own and built our cities on'. Maybe their name even changes with time.
And, of course, what is our name for our own species? The world agrees on 'Homo sapiens sapiens', but are we humans, or dynol (Welsh), or čovjek (Bosnian)...? Maybe the flying reptiles of Kssrkt call their species Ssst'krss, but their cousins in St'kssh say they're called K'tsskr...
hS
The 'verse I'm currently working on (nicknamed Starships & Sorcery) is growing faster than my stories can keep up with it, and as such, I've got a cast of characters whose background stories and scenes go like this:
Eight months later, just at the start of year -9, Adel left the school, making a clean break. She went back home once, to collect a few things and say goodbye to Rolf. His shop was gone, and so was he; she left a message with Balthus and got on a flight to a planet in System (Y)*, two years' accelerated travel from home.
She met Gwen in a bar on Planet (E), in year -6, while taking a brief break after a months' bodyguard stint on a traveler who'd just left the planet. They got to talking, and continued to exchange correspondence periodically afterwards. When Gwen started up the Station, Adel was down on her luck between contracts, and joined up, looking for some quiet and some stability.
*This is, of course, just post-war, so she'd be looking to avoid Planet (T) and the surrounding chaos - probably doing work in Sector (D) instead.
Because if there's one thing I know, it's that rushing in with the names is going to come back and bite me, hard, if I don't tackle it carefully. So things are going to look a little silly now - they'll be freaking awesome when I get the dialects of the various Systems and Sectors straightened out. I think it's worth the wait, to come up with halfway decent place-naming schemes. (People-naming schemes I've actually got backstory for, which is a relief and a half.)
But yes. Never, ever be afraid to throw something silly and place-holder-ish in while you get the sensible names sorted. It'll save you a lot of time and trouble in the long run.
So far in my high fantasy world I've been using a combination of your approach and a couple others. I'm working on a conlang to be the language of magic, which will be used to name a few ancient species, so at the moment I'm putting in placeholders like "[ghoul]" to be replaced when I flesh out its vocabulary later on.
Place names, on the other hand, come from an archaic language (somewhat like how some place names in England derive from Old English) that's never actually going to be fully explored, so I either play around with root words until they sound good — for example, city names all end in "mas," presumably the old word for a city — or I just throw in something euphonious that doesn't quite work knowing I'll come back to it later and improve it.
I don't run much risk of getting attached to the placeholder names because they just don't feel right, if that makes any sense, and when I use them or read them there's an overwhelming desire to sit around and fix them. The only reason I haven't is that I want to at least get a rough draft finished before I start polishing up place names that I know aren't going to stay the way they are.
Probably because I use actual names, but still.
For example, I once wanted to play out in my head how a realistic self-insert would act if she (I) was dropped into Middle-earth. I very quickly got awkward with using my real name, and it wouldn't mean anything to anyone there anyway, so I tried to find some sort of placeholder. I used Alasse (add the umlaut) because I'd read something that used it recently and I liked that it meant 'joy' (or something like that. The fic was probably Daughter of Time, which is fantastic).
It's been three years now, and Alasse has branched out into her own character (and is probably a bit of a Sue, depending on the version, but since the Sueish parts will never make it to paper, that's fine). She has a reason for the name-change to Alasse, and has two to three aliases (Joy Moonland, Alice DeLuna, and Jay Winchester, the last of which we will not go into beyond 'attempting to play out a realistic-ish Winchester sister'). So...backfiring, in a way, but it worked out. (As to why 'Moonland' and 'DeLuna'--guess where she eventually settled down? That's right, Ithilien. I adore the descriptions of it in the books.)
Another, somewhat more recent version of this (and one that's actually on paper) is that of Secondus (...I think I've got the right spelling...) He's this character who suddenly ended up in the story when I was only expecting to have one (and a blogger, but the blogger was originally not separate from the first character). My father joked that I could call him Secondus, I think because he was the second main character and I had no name for him, so I started using it in my notes (he got his first real scene yesterday, hurrah!) and now I'm trying to think of a way for it to be his screenname (he also finally got a real name. Which is a bit of a placeholder, actually. Knowing me, it'll grow on me too, and he'll end up being Yoni in RL and Secondus online.)
Honestly, your way is probably a good deal more sensible, in terms of being sure that the name you choose fits and is what you want; the way I do it, it becomes rather difficult to change (Anna did manage to become Nannette, though. But I believe Nannette will eventually be changed as well, as it seems rather awkward to me...albeit quite a pretty name). Perhaps I should try using letters sometime, rather than names ...although I do also use a system that looks kind of like this: (soldier boy)/(red)/___(ellon).
~DF
Using letters, or place-holders, rather than actual names - because if you use actual names, you're likely to get attached and start thinking of them as the 'real' name, even if that was never your intent.
In my defense, I think I was rather tired when I wrote all that. And I like to talk :)
Maybe we could pretend that I was actually trying to provide further proof for your point, rather than trying to show a different side of the argument? ;) Or else just write it off as tiredness.
(In other words, whoops. That would be me on lack of sleep.)
~DF
No worries - I've been rather snappish on the internets lately, I apologize if I came off that way. And differences of opinion, they happen!
I hope I'm saying this right, but some of your races seem a bit sci-fi stereotypical. I mean, the villainous skeletal-looking xenophobic eugenic superrace with 'necro' in its name (why does a nonhuman race have a name-root that matches so well with English words? It's just a bit standard. Also, the whole-race-personality thing always annoys me in sci-fi. Putting the idea of family-loving or honorable on a whole race seems kinda silly - surely they have different cultures with different values within their species.
Well, I did say this was a work in progress, didn't I? Not all of the ideas here will make the cut. And maybe it the personality-cultures are a bit dumb... hm... guess it's back to the word processor...
...were the Necroix inspired by:
these guys?
More questions if you don't mind:
-what is your universe's method of FTL travel? Do different races have different methods?
-are there alliances between the various races? Who are the major powers? Are they in conflict with each other (aside from the very obvious Necroix/everyone else interactions)?
-are all of the aliens able to live in the same atmosphere? Can some aliens eat the food of another alien species without getting sick?
-are the armies of the galaxy still using kinetic weapons or have they moved on to laser beams? (PG-13 language)
-speaking of military power, how do the humans stack up physically and tactically to the other warrior-races?
-do the Roons ever get served a "Screw You, Elves" moment?
-how powerful are the proposed psychics? Can they fry their enemies' brains inside their heads or are they limited to "weaker" interactions like telepathy?
But more seriously I'd love to hear about it and I'm sure other Boarders would love to as well.
...I don't see why not. I'd say talking about ideas is one of the main purposes of the Board, in fact.
-Aila