The Two Types of Sci-Fi Worldbuilding

Gotta love humans. Or hate 'em. Or maybe both love 'em and hate 'em. I don't know.

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#scifi #worldbuilding

[sclair]

I love the idea of asymmetry being explained by "A demon stole all the antimatter."

[ScipiPurr]

Little does type 1 realize, every other species in their universe is telling themselves the exact same thing

[mrmnty]

Type 1: Currency is called "credits"

Type 2: Currency is called "floorps"

[darkychao]

"We've literally been crashing our ships onto your planet so you could have access to it."
okay, but like-- why would you think that's the most efficient way of sharing knowledge?

[ghg]

The real two types: 1) no it's not magic, there's some science I can't explain
2) first, read my physics thesis, then get doctorate in engineering

[Paul-A]

"You're saying all aliens are evil? I can't believe only humans are good"
"Oh no, humans are evil too"

[HenriqueLSilva]

Settings with multiple sentient species usually fall into one of these:
- humans are the best
- humans are the worst
- everyone is the worst
- everyone is bad at something
- Lovecraft was sugarcoating the bloody cosmos
any of them may or may not contain one or more alien groups classified as "Mary sue, the species", which may or may not be a race of prehistoric superbeings that somehow just all died one day.

[superjlk_]

Star Wars is the only fantasy/sci-fi universe I’ve come across that tries to treat every species relatively the same. Humans are most common due to budgetary reasons and for the sake of resonating with viewers.

[AshZucchini]

“It’s best to share resources, we figured that out day one”
Well clearly azorgalel didn’t!

[dn]

I thought it was going to be something like

Type I: My world is not realistic enough... I've consulted biology experts to simulate how a species would reasonably evolve and shape themselves into a civilization, but I don't have the molecular theory down, people are going to laugh at my work!
Type II: So... This species of alien are cat people... And this one are lobster people... And this one is squid people. And the fact that they resemble earth animals is completely by coincidence don't think about it.

[notproductiveproductions]

The two types of writers developing a magic system
-the one who develops a literal rpg system that’s meant to account for everything
-a wizard did it

[magicalgirl]

That type 1 speech goes somewhere really beautiful but then it goes back to being horrifying and just ends with "yeah so it's no big deal if we giga-genocide all other life in the universe, they don't matter"

[caracatoacacepe]

Type I: humans harbor the author's political views
Type II: aliens harbor the author's political views

[jic]

2:34 There's a Harry Turtledove short story called _The Road Not Taken_ where humanity is probably the only intelligent species not to have obtained faster than light travel through gravity manipulation. However, this is because the technology is so simple that almost every other species works out how to do it at about a 15th century level of technology, which means that they go off to conquer space and all other technological development stagnates. So we have a situation where aliens arrive on near future earth and try to awe the primitive natives by attacking them with their most advanced weaponry: matchlock muskets. You can imagine how well that goes for them.

[JonnesTT]

"you're like the only species to invent racism" continues to bash someone for the species they belong to with literally zero reference to the individual talked to.

[chairuptop]

I hope that the plot of the second story is humans perfecting antimatter creation in order to disrupt the demonic monopoly

[DishyLemon]

"Earth is the only place in the universe where beings evolved to have empathy. All the other beings have is horniness--where are you going??"

[unique]

Having an eldritch out of reality demon have a monopoly on the universe’s most important resource sounds like a great extra plot.

[z-beeblebrox]

And then the slow dawning realization that both types are secretly the same type

[easolinas]

I can't tell which type annoys me more: the "humans are glorious wonderful benevolent creatures with a special undefinable wonderfulness that sets them apart" OR the "fictional aliens are better than humans because the author made them that way."