What Makes A Good Setting? | Cinematic Universes, Shared Worlds, and Why They Succeed or Fail
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- Why is it some alternate words can resonate with us so deeply where others fall completely flat? In this episode of the Way of Worldbuilding, we investigate what makes a good setting.
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00:00 | Introduction
00:38 | Table of Contents
01:20 | "Expanded Universes"
02:41 | Common Elements of a "Good" Setting
07:05 | Critiquing Expanded Universes
07:21 | Star Wars
08:24 | Lord of the Rings
09:55 | Halo
11:12 | Warhammer 40,000
11:52 | The Walking Dead
12:52 | Starfield
14:24 | Building Our Own Setting / Conclusion
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I really love how the writers over at Black Library have started to realize the power of 40k as a setting for a dozen different stories of many different genres, rather than sticking solely to blockbuster-style military action (aka bolter porn). For example there have been 5 crime novels set in the 40k universe released in the past 3 years, as well as a similar number of horror novels.
And in doing so offer some of the hardest hitting looks at the soullessness of life in the Imperium and why so often people turn to chaos.
I'd like to see a drama movie about the life of an inhabitant of one of the hive cities.
@@ExosprayAny recommendations for these? I was surprised to go into the BL and see those genres there (usually Fantasy only had them for a while).
@@kawaiku flesh and steel is a good one
I subscribed to WarhammerTV for the BolterPorn, I stayed because Interrogator was scratching a 40k detective noir itch I didn't know I had and now I am trying to get a Dark Heresy group together.
Star Wars Legends did not have the same extent of problems as the Disney stuff, but it would be disingenuous of me to say that they were not there at all. Still, the fact that Disney is now dipping into the Old Republic, doing things like making Revan canon, kind of shows what SW Legends was able to do with their universe, albeit in a somewhat limited way.
What about all the post episode 6 stuff?
@@omarbaba9892 Which are you referring to? Legends or Disney? Because the fact that the first thing Disney did was toss Legends out of canon - only to produce what has been rather divisive among fans - does not do the Disney stuff any favors.
There is also how there is an "Essential Legends Collection," which includes things like the first few books of the Rogue Squadron series. This, to me, shows how Legends does not have the same extent of the problems mentioned; yes, there are still elements of them present, just not enough to significantly detract from the books. Sadly, these are still Legends only and not part of the Disney canon. Are they still good as they are? Sure, but having two conflicting universe-timelines, regardless from how much of one the other "borrows" from (bringing Thrawn back into canon was a smart move, but it still feels botched), does not help, at least not for the SW universe.
It is why I do not knock Templin for marking the points they did off of Star Wars. They are real, and they can be (not necessarily always, but definitely can be and certainly has been) a significant problem. It is just that the Disney stuff, while it does have some things going for it that are at least interesting, has been worse overall than Legends.
The High Republic is also a thing and is pretty good IMO.
@@gavinsmith9871 It's a start, but it's only that, a start. It has a long way to go before it can properly compete with what Legends gave us, which, BTW, also went into the time of the High Republic. Granted, Legends did not spend any great amount of time or storytelling on the High Republic, so Disney has an opportunity here to make its mark (and hopefully an overall positive one), but we'll have to wait and see on this.
In the meantime, they still have to deal with what they have done with Star Wars so far, and while they appear to be doing a decent-enough job of keeping it separate from the High Republic, only time will tell whether or not this holds.
@@DavidRichardson153 Legends really didn't go into that time period though? Like maybe one story? I can't think of anything off the top of my head.
One of my favorite fictional settings is Santa's Workshop on the north pole. It's such an insane story concept that so many have tried to create functional worldbuilding around. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. People really want it to work and I love that we constantly get new stories that gives alternative explantions to how Santa operates.
The main problem with most of these stories that try to become expanded universes is that they all end up trying to either: Tie themselves directly to the big setting-ending conflict of the original story, which always ends up feeling hamfisted and awkward. Or they try to one-up the main story, and the whole thing devolves into a Saturday morning 'existential threat of the week' cartoon where the ultimate bad guy of ultimate doom shows up and nothing will ever be as powerful as they are... except for the guy that turns up next week who is somehow more arbitrarily powerful! Raysed steakz guis!
I think other types of stories are perfectly valid in pretty much any setting. You can totally use the main story points to branch off of, even, but you don't need to be directly tied into them. Every time a city gets mostly destroyed in a big defence against some berk and their army before the hero sods off to hit them with a sword for a bit... what happens to the people that need to clean up? There's a million (in my opinion probably more interesting) stories that sprout out of that bit of the setting. You just have to accept that the arc of it is more "literary" fiction than grand-arc genre fiction.
I think genre fiction writers in general should avoid 'save the world' narratives in general. They're usually tedious and simplistic and there are so many better conflicts.
I prefer to say writers should save the realm, don't save the world. Don't do universe ending threats ended by a plucky band of heroes, it opens dumb questions and sets the stakes far too high for any follow up. Instead the threat is local, the city, the kingdom, the realm, but never the world. It means you can always have an equal threat of a different type, you can have non-actors in the world because they aren't threatened by this so of course they don't care/take advantage. Of course the heroes can't just get super weapon A, the greedy holder is saving it for a REAL threat (To themselves). Of course the (Leadership entity) is ignoring this threat, he has 5 other bigger things to deal with than this right now.
Smaller stakes opens up more narrative options for antagonism, heroism, small action adventures, intrigue, relationships, tough decisions without making the hero feel small. When it is a choice between the heroes life and the world, there is no choice. When it is the heroes life vs a single kingdom? A single city? Now the dilemma makes sense, it also now feels personal.
I think that you don't necessarily have to be saving the whole world/universe to write a good genre story, either. You can just be saving a single town, the day, or even just a single life. But it takes a bit of brainpower and skill to make an audiecen feel invested and care about what is at stake. At least, it takes more than just saying the whole world is in danger, which is strange because that seems far more abstract and harder to comprehend than a beloved character or locale.
Why safe anybody at all? Just trying to get from A to B before The Rain starts, without going into debt or be torn apart by the "Goblin of the Year" squad to attend this "once in a lifetime" social faire. There don't always have to be lives at stake to make it "The Whole World".
"Somehow, Palpatine has returned!"
(but with even *more* lasers!)
This entire series is becoming such a treat to follow along with.
With Disney? Dream on!
You should read Expanded Universe
Old Republic and the Ancient Galactic Epic poems waiting for adaptation: 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
@@tiglishnobody8750 Trust me, I'm already a huge Legends fan. The eras I said I enjoyed most were various Old Republic era stories, with active Sith Empires and the like. Tales of the Jedi, KOTOR, SWTOR, that kind of thing.
Disney's storytelling in the era of the movies is getting too safe and self-referential for me. The High Republic era I mentioned though, is genuinely interesting in how it shows an older Republic Golden Age and a Jedi Order with a huge diversity of thought in the Force. Not quite Old Republic and very few Sith to be found yet, but still some of the better canon material out there.
@@chaosfire321 I kind wish too but too many misuse and mismanagement, Andor and Rouge are good element outside of Clone War, and maybe Rebel but rest of it I think not :/
I feel like if the planets and characters we know would have been stuff we occasionally see (they are important in the universe) but the only aspect of the universe that supposedly house tens trillions of people and have tens of thousands of settled and livable worlds
The Templin Institute’s series so far is very excellent.
Another fine addition to the collection.
The viewer count is a damn shame though. They can't sustain the channel with numbers that low.
I’m really interested in the Mass Effect universe, because currently it’s stuck somewhere between Halo and Warhammer. On the one hand much like Halo the original games are dominated by a single central conflict (the Reaper Invasion). But Andromeda showed that the series has enough breadth of lore that it can support stories outside of that, that game’s flaw was far more in execution than concept. The next game in the series is going to be the real test, can BioWare go back to the Milky Way and build off of the original trilogy in a way that genuinely adds to the universe, or will it not be able to escape the shadow of the original games and doom any future sequels to the same fate. I eagerly look forwards to seeing which path they take.
I feel like something of post conflict multipolar world were your character need to prevent war could work while exploring the universe
The post-Reaper conflict basically reshapes the entire universe and allows it to become more dynamic.
THe power of the Citadel Council is broken and the galaxy is basically rebuilding all more or less at the same time. It already was a multi-polar world with 1 major power in charge.
But it can go the Star Trek route and have multiple competing factions all over the galaxy an stories big and small can be told in the intersection of these growing pains for the post-reaper conflict.
I am very curious to see what happens moving forward as well.
I'm not exactly pleased to hear about certain aspects of the game (Specifically, their choice of a canon ending) but I will grit my teeth and accept it as long as the rest of the game is fantastic.
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim Destroy was the only ending that allowed the universe to continue more or less as we knew it.
It gets rid of the Reapers (which was the entire point) and the rest is rebuilding, but with the factions mostly unchanged.
Yes the Geth get whipped out and so is EDI, but wars have casualties.
Control simply moves the problem to another time as it's unknown how long Shepard can keep the Reapers at bay.
While Synthesis joins you with machines and the galaxy enters a long term time of peace (so not really ripe for story telling).
Everyone has their own vision of what Shepard would have done, but from a continuing universe perspective, Destroy really was the only real option.
@@Keemperor40K I respectfully disagree, and you seem to have a massive misunderstanding of the Control ending.
Shepard isn't "Keeping the Reapers at Bay" any more than Legion using the Heretic Virus was keeping the Heretics at bay. I have no idea where the whole "Control ending is Temporary" Fanon came from, but it's flat out not the case.
Think of it this way: The Reapers are a Hivemind, and Shepard replaced the original Overmind. The Reapers cannot break free from Shepard anymore than they could have from the Catalyst.
I agree with the extended/expanded universe part to an extent. Halo didn't need any more epic games after the original trilogy and perhaps the spinoffs. But often, a different type of media can serve these purposes extremely well. Books, audiodramas, and shows can focus on smaller, character driven or specific scenario type narratives. Many of the Halo books are fantastic. But wouldn't make for good games or movies.
To me, Star Wars actually hit the sweet spot in the middle of having an open-ended story with a beginning, middle, and end that teases a wider galaxy to explore, especially with the ancient history of humanity and of the Force itself. The creative teams behind Star Wars focus way too much on the Republic, the Empire, and the Rebellion; there are so many other narrative possibilities in the Star Wars universe to fulfill if the producers and the writers just free themselves from the box they trapped themselves in.
With regard to Lord of the Rings, the setting is very much multipolar, you just need to look at events between the grand wars with dark lords, or at the First Age for that matter. Gondor fought a civil war which resulted in a breakaway power in Umbar for quite some time. Arnor imploded in an even more dramatic fashion into a conflict which Sauron later took advantage of. The Wainriders had very little to do with Sauron and fought wars with his servants AND Gondor. The Second Age had a three way power dynamic between Sauron, Lindon and the Numenoreans.
As for the First Age, you have Morgoth vs the native populace of Beleriand vs the Fingolfinian Noldor vs the Feanorean Noldor, to greater or lesser degrees. Not to mention the Dwarves getting in on things by sacking Doriath's capital but also siding against Morgoth.
There's also a very much open ended narrative. We have the whole of the Fourth Age to play with, not to mention the events of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh ages which have little coverage save that the Sixth and Seventh take place in something approximating our own world's history.
Not a huge surprise they missed stuff on ME it was a very complex topic even for Tolkien!
YES! there are so many stories in middle earth (and even some outside it like that choir of the Valar and Illuvitar) just talking about the war of the ring doesn't do it justice.
@@specialnewb9821 True, though given that he talked about 'films' rather than 'books' and has previously said Men in Middle-Earth are too pure to be real (obviously incorrect, just look at say, Castamir), I suspect Templin either hasn't read the books and therefore has never interacted with the canon, or it's been way too long since he did and he didn't check his facts on Tolkien Gateway.
@@BernddasBrotB7 Good point. 👍
A lot of the issue is that they keep approaching it as though The Lord of the Rings is the setting, as opposed to just Middle Earth.
I noticed the same characteristics of settings as a game master running an RPG in the world of warhammer 40k and star wars.
Whenever I play Star Wars, I have to change something to make the adventure make sense and not destroy the existing lore, or I have to change the lore.
I don't have this problem in Warhammer 40k. If I want, I can add a strange faction, a new order of marines or a race of aliens to the edge of the galaxy, lead an epic conflict and nothing will change in the lore.
Really curious to hear about what you had to change for running Star Wars ttrpg for me I never really felt like I had that issue but then again my preferred time like was the clone wars era so I can say some random planet x with forces y are having conflict. Just curious about the stories you’ve made
@@FreelancerStudios100 Usually it was just little things, but the results count. Like the overthrow of an empire in 4 BBY.
@@lukasz88888888 i see nothing wrong with that if it helps your story for your game your all good.
Never gave up hope on sleeping eight hours that fast before, this is clearly more important than sleep
While I hate all the Post Human-Covenant war story lines I think they would be a lot better if they were small scale more mass effect style stories with a new multipolar order of various small factions picking up the pieces of The the Covenant and a decimated and divided UNSC, Post war Halo falls into the same trap as every other sequel storyline were everything is a galaxy ending threat and has to one up itself instead of a smaller more focused story . I also wish more Halo stories would take place in during The Insurrection.
I feel like the biggest problem is most of the writers can’t comprehend multipolar world (might be because the amount of Americans ones)
Being a millennial just on the other side of 40 one series I truly miss and would have loved to seen an EU on is the original C&C dawn series, I would have loved to see a game or book set in the tiberium sun era with mutated wildlife and the politics behind Blue, yellow and red zones... Another universe that is amazing for lore is the Expanse series, utterly compelling to read, listen to and watch!
I'm so goddamn tired of the Skywalkers. Jump 20-50-100 years into the future and start writing some new stories grounded in the OT, but beyond it. It's a great setting with infinite potential. "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to"
Tell the wtiters that it's "Time to abandon ship."
Stories that tell a particular story within a world setting, tend to fair poorly as expanded worlds of storytelling.
(Lord of the Rings, Star Wars.)
But world settings that tell various stories within that particular world setting, tend to create expansive worlds for possible story telling.
(Warhammer, Magic the Gathering, Fallout, Halo sort of.)
Really looking forward to seeing what sort of world you begin to create on the 4th!
Depends. I think Middle Earth had a great expanded lore outside the Lord of the Rings. Star Wars also has great lore outside the Movies, at least the clone wars, Knights of the Old Republic, and Expanded Universe Thrawn Trilogy. It depends who makes the lore behind the expansions.
I'll be voting for the Mil Sci-Fi/Space Opera one but so help me God, Eternal Kreventum must make an appearance. One of the best lost narrative opportunities ever teased by the Templin Institute. I'll even become a Patreon if that's what it takes to bring them back.
What's that? I'm kinda new to the Templin lore
@@ceccascorp8149 Eternal Kreventum was one of the suggested nations for the Institute's second season of Stellaris Invicta. It was a very interesting take on lots of Vampire and Gothic tropes combining them with sci fi with Humanity essentially becoming a type of devouring swarm. It lost out against the Antares Confederacy, in my opinion, a very straightforward example of a good guy faction which led to more or less retreaded ground and expected outcomes.
The people in charge of Halo keep trying to make it revolve around Chief when there are 100's of other stories in the universe, hell they could take us back to being ancient humanity fighting the forerunners and flood, or give us the most requested game ever, a dead space style flood horror game, we could have random odst stories and at least a handful of Reach style stories, tell us about other spartan 2's just let the chief go MIA already
Trouble is, Chief became a mascot and a merch vector. To not put hi m in the game is to risk losing that property.
Its a poor excuse
marathon lore is so good :(
when it comes to Zombies Genre, World War Z ( Novel) and The Last of Us seems to be one that fill all your check list
I think Halo: Legends did a really good job of showing where Halo should have gone. The series of short stories all within the UNSC Covenant War or before worked really well! Showing different perspectives and stories of the same events. The stuff they’ve done now just isn’t as strong. And at times feels contradictory to the original games’ intent. I hope the studio comes to realize this and get the series on track!
Yeah, 343 really let a lot of potential go to waste, things like Mona Lisa were great. A flood horror movie like that but live action would be awesome.
Transmission Recievied
_The Hobbit_ was published some 17 years before the first book in _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy, sp a lot of the story links only come later. Heck, Sauron isn't even called that, merely being mention as 'the necromancer' in the original text.
Retcons.
I have to tell you, I really appreciate the work you are doing here and looking forward to your content. Thank you!
For Warhammer 40k, one of its greatest strengths is how batshit insane it is. Every cliché and trope is cranked to 101.
I think that one of the main problems of having multipolar world is that it is made in our world that is basically unipolar world with US has strongest nation in human history and lots of this series’s end with US like nation in some way shape or form taking over no matter how likely it will be (realistically star war universe would turn into multi polar world and not into the new republic and first order after the end of the trilogy)
But Star Wars has the Republic lasting tens of thousands of years, with galactic politics staying unipolar or bipolar for basically all of that time. We can argue the realism of THAT, but within such a setting, it's logical that with the Empire wrecked people would be looking to the next unitary body, because that's what's always happened and always been, forming a self fulfilling prophecy.
@@westrimtrue but that not the way to make the world more interesting to explore (even extended universe realized how to make multiple factions unipolar world
The Warhammers are one of the best examples of worldbuilding because they are from the ground up designed to be as flexible and multipolar as possible, while using certain themes and tone to anchor the whole thing and keeping it from becoming arbitrary. Of couse, that is because they are game settings first and foremost, story settings a distant second. Players are able, and encouraged, to field any faction against any other or even the same faction without having to do any mental gymnastics as to how that would happen, and also creating their own subfactions and narratives. And thanks to a truly vast universe and generous use of the unreliable narrator, it is surprisingly hard to reach a point where one would say "that is just silly and implausible".
Concerning Star Wars, I think it does exceedingly well with "small" stories, away from the main trilogies but starts to struggle as you get nearer to the main characters. The old EU had the same problem, I think in the end every single day of Luke Skywalkers Life was depicted somewhere...
The fact that Warhammer is meant to be a game setting first is both its biggest weakness and strength, none of the factions can really win because it means the game going to end, and it also means that the "story" can never really go anywhere. When Chaos won in fantasy they blew up the world and rebooted everything into a worst high fantasy setting.
Which is why I don't really want them to bring the primarchs and Emperor back in 40K, either they are just going to use it to do a reboot, or they are just going to turn it into "The Emperor and sons show!"
Warhammer is a good example of when the game limits the lore significantly. There are literally hundreds of fascinating alien races, factions, characters, etc in the background, stuffed into codexes and rulebooks (heresy black books are the greatest IMO) to be explored but since Space marines and more epic transhumans (Custodes, Grey Knights, Primarchs) are the moneymakers most people see the most of (and so buy more of) they make up the bulk of fluff material. It's to be expected though, seeing as how GW's bread and butter is games and gaming material and they are hesitant to drift too far away from their roots.@@bencox3641
Another franchise that , like WH40K, does this extremely well is SCP, where there is straight up no main story or for that matter main canon, and as long as what you write is high quality and fits the "vibe" it's fine. This leaves room in the universe for anything from the anomalous tomatoes that accelerate to hit anyone that makes a bad joke, to the infinite IKEA, to literal reality devouring demons.
A shiny new video 😊
I think the obvious place for starfield to go with its future setting will be to add in alien civilizations past the edges of human settled systems.
What they need is more factions with more consequences of interaction. If you do radiant quests on planet B96 for faction A, then they inherit that planet and the architecture, ships, quests, and enemies change to suit that new faction style. This was something promised early in development and dropped for some reason. But having Supermutants and city guards fighting, or legion and rangers fighting at random locations made the fallout games feel living in and exciting and made siding with a faction feel more important.
Talking about species and factions, my project (as it started as a total rework of Halo universe) contains all the species of Halo, plus some new.
But it's the political and cultural variety that I'm developing more and more.
I have to cover between 7 to 9000 years from now, so roughly, the events will be placed something like 6500 years after the first events of the Halo trilogy.
A series of prologues shows one point of view from each faction, the main ones.
But in 9000 years stuff like the Covenant is already gone.
There will be the successors and inheritors of those factions.
With their own stories and development.
Of course the vast majority of such work will never be show in the novels, but it's important to know how the things went in that way in order to be accurate in writing the novel.
One can not simply just invent stuff if there's already a bit of lore behind.
Or showing, for example, a ship like the Pillar of Autumn after 9000 years would be ridiculous. The same can be said for characters, societies, cultures, arts, etc.
It follows logically that each faction have relationships with all the others, interests, objectives, goals etc.
And the fact that some wins while others lost bring specific behaviors in certain factions.
A culture that have lost a war can be reduced in slavery, or become fragmentated and give birth to multiple internal factions that not only struggle to achieve unity for their own faction, but fights also against others, externals.
One example are, directly from my universe, the fact that the humans that have followed a very important figure and character of the story into the galaxy fringe was let lose for two thousands of years and some more centuries on a single planet.
But in my universe, those humans didn't simply stay there to count the passing days.
They lived, worked, had loves and hate relationships, explored the universe and found empires and republics, federations and leagues.
At the time the novel is set, the humans of the fringe have already 2250 years of history at their back till the moment they arrived.
And so it also mean that their new homeworld isn't just a planet, but an old devastated by the war, still thriving center for trade, ecumenopolis.
And all around there are borders with other human factions. Some open to alien influences, others less.
The same aliens are open to human influences.
The "Second Covenant Empire" made up by the Jiralhanae, now is a christian orthodox alien empire. Kinda like a "Space Byzantine empire" to say.
And all of this is still just the tip of the worldbuilding that I'm carry on right now... 😑 I have always to take note of eventual good ideas while Im away, but... it is still an hell of a job.
I do see a problem here that you've reduced the scope to properties which are broadly intended for collaborative story-telling within a specific content-generating framework... or in the case of Middle Earth were unnaturally repurposed into such. Is the point here to create a setting that can be marketable across different mediums and allow for endless creative input from different creators, or to just make one that works for a specific piece of fiction? It's particularly important, I think, because all these EUs tend to be risk-averse and often quite formulaic -- which is definitely beneficial to retaining your consumers but not especially compelling generally.
IMO
- Sense of greater mysteries and concepts which are beyond the main characters or plot
- The world feels alive, and that it could easily exist without the protags or main story pushing events forward
If a Middle earth story didn't reference the conflict between good and evil it would not be middle earth. The sillmarrilion (spelling error) is the expanded universe. It's great, read it.
I'm convinced the title sequence uses Alien: Isolation SFX
It’s so hard to appreciate Disney’s rendition of Star Wars when the first thing they did with the franchise was say fuck you to 35 years of fans and content, only to copy said content in a similar but almost universally worse way, and call anyone who didn’t like it a sexist.
When it comes to LOTR, I agree almost completely with your assessment. Fallout as well.
I’ve never really been into halo so I can’t say either way, and your points on the walking dead and Starfield are very well thought out, even if I don’t entirely agree. Good video, I’m looking forward to seeing this series continue and evolve
Great points, but I question why the breakdown aimed at the Movies and video games. You know LotR is based on the written works of Tolkien, right? And that the movies (which I enjoyed, even the Hobbit trilogy) are not a true representation of the setting. It would have been better to use the actual source material to see how they rank on your 4 elements, which include a lot more history and detail beyond the War of the Ring. It's like doing the breakdown on Star Wars, but only using the Legends novels and ignoring the original trilogy.
Very interesting video btw, you've basically explained the things I had in my mind with proper words x)
I kind of think many fall in to the trapp. making one side totaly good and one side totaly evil. If you have a few fractions on at least one side and its not realy clear what side is the good one. things become a bit more intresting. I think, you got a good Antagonist. If you can write a story from their point of view and it makes sense.
Your talking about the issues with telling other stories in LotR got me thinking, and the one thing I can think of is go smaller rather than larger.
Give me a story or game about the a family living near the front when the front spills over, follow their struggle to escape danger and survive in this empirically hellish world now that they’re refugees. It would be different and would feel smaller, but that’s because it *is* smaller, but done so in a way that isn’t striving to tell another epic tale in a world that has one - and only one - epic tale.
I like the dark mythology riddled around the pirates of the Caribbean.
Limiting Halo to only the Human-Covenant war is a terrible idea when we have multiple good stories taking place in the post-war era with the Banished, Arbiter and the Sangheili, Forerunner stuff like Rion's adventure, and so on. Especially when its focusing on the chaos of the post-war era and how former Covenant species deal with the aftermath.
Mostly just seems like they bungled things, don't understand what they messed up or how to fix it.
No one really cares about the post-war stuff because most of it was written by Franko Connor and his ideas are completely terrible.
Pre-war and and early Human-Covenant war is where a lot of good content and potential is at.
Frankie is your excuse? I don't know, did you looked at the various different authors and writers that are actually writing it?
I have to say its amusing Frankie O'Connor is sure living rent free in people's head.
True, it has taken Halo some time to properly move on from the Human-Covenant war and in the process there have inevitably been stumbles. But even then the universe feels vast and expansive, with new threats emerging and old one reappearing and this keeps the universe both consistent, yet fresh.
Sadly the end on the Created saga was bungled spectacularly (told in flashbacks,), but the effects it has on the franchise open it to become this multi-polar universe in which so many things can happen and so many stories can be told.
The weakening of the post-war UNSC, allows the Swords of Shanghelios and the Banished to establish themselves as equals, as the UNSC also has to recover from the Created conflict, so right of the bat you have 3 major established factions.
The Flood are a recurring enemy that can reappear at any point and is always a dire threat that serves to keep the universe on its toes.
These 4 factions are already well established and together or separately can tell many stories in many ways.
For those who have read the books, we know that there are other factions that could appear to become part of the multi-polar universe.
The Prophets are bidding their time in a shield world and could be written as a recurring antagonist.
The Created where beaten, but not destroyed and could recover some of their strength to become another recurring antagonist.
While the Swords are the major Elite faction, there are many more out there which are growing in strength and could become an issue at any point.
The UNSC in its weakened state could split in 2, with the Rebels and independents finally having the opportunity they needed to create a second major Human group outside of the UNSC.
And the universe has many secrets to reveal, from the Forerunner, the Precursors and we have only really explored a small part of the galaxy.
IIRC, in all fairness, there is at least a small handful of localized factions in Starfield. Thus far, the only ones I know of are the Ebbside Strikers and the Disciples, two rival gangs from Neon, the three settler families (forgot their names) from the Piazzi system, and the Pragmatists, Renegades, and Believers from the Cruciblr. You could make the argument that Vae Victus and his accomplices are a faction of their own, but that’s everyone I know of.
Need house Va’ruun as a full 3rd major faction tbh
@@TheKonkaman The spacers have a lot of potential as well. They can defintely be expanded into clan like structures that bicker with each other as much as the major powers with the aforementioned inner conflict being the only reason they aren't a major power themselves. There are multiple quest like "groundpounders" that scream there has to be more going on with these guys.
Seriously, I'm dead excited about this, I may steal some of your ideas for one of my projects lol
"World's heaviest super-computer." 🤣
I just realized I wasn't subscribed and rectified that sin immediately. Idk if I accidentally unsubbed at some point or if I've been purely going off of youtube recommendations but I've been watching for years. Anyway keep up the great work!
I’ve started my own fan world building project set in Star Wars Legends, in the ancient past of Coruscant, back when it was Notron and the ancestors of humanity fought the Taung for ownership of the world. Ideally it will be a mix of cyberpunk/diesel-punk/steampunk with the spiritualism that Lucas wished to bring back to Sci fi being rediscovered in the form of the Force, and its early scholars.
An underlooked factor in working on a setting, especially by its audience, is deciding when you're working on a storyline or a setting. A storyline takes place within the setting and is the tool by which its boundaries are most often explored and set, but it is not the setting itself. A setting is only the place in which stories occur, and has no narrative weight nor merit by itself. Consider the snowglobe; the story is the scene and the snow within, liable to being shaken up so we can watch the pieces fall, but ultimately bound by the globe of the setting and unlikely to leave things drastically different from how they started. The setting is the globe; setting the limits of the space while leaving its contents open to change and stirring-up, but without the scenes within simply hollow and empty.
Fans and corporations alike are prone to speaking of the setting and the story in one breath, conflating the snow for the globe when demanding either one change or advance, and either can be risky. If the setting itself needs to change, because it is exhausted for potential or in some way broken or gross, no amount of changing the snow will fix the globe, and after a single shake the audience will get bored and wander off again.If you say you want the setting to advance but you really just want newer stories, instead of swapping in new scenes in the globe to shake up in new ways, you either don't shake hard enough and change nothing, or too hard and break the globe, leaving the setting and all its stories as just a broken wet mess. I'm sure the commenters here have seen plenty of examples of both mistakes.
Another universe that in a sense has a wacky expanded universe and makes sense if you don't think about it, is a setting called BattleTech. Now I watched the stream you did on HBS BattleTech years ago when the game came out, and I have to say that is but a small piece of the over 1200 year history of BattleTech, and you critiqued the setting in harsh manner. Oh I get where you're coming from at the time but you only had a taste of what the universe had to offer. Granted there are a couple things that fans like us refuse to accept that have been made in the settings recent years, but suffice to say that everything before that is well made and makes sense once you get the full scope of how dense BattleTech really is. Also they made an actual cartoon back in the 80s. It was really weird and didn't make sense for the setting, however the people behind BattleTech at the time who made that show, retconned it as in-universe propaganda as a tongue and cheek joke against a group of people in the setting, and you can still watch it for free here on RUclips. Aside from that, it's a very niche universe unlike others that are supper well known like Warhammer 40k, Star Trek, etc., but the level of uniqueness and the fact that no one in the setting is a real good guy, you get to see people talk about their favorite faction or favorite group of people. That's excluding the hundreds of mechs and vehicles that people talk about is their favorite. Anyways I hope you do give BattleTech another shot as it will give you more insight on world building that we can all agree, is what we care a lot about. Right now there is no end point in the setting as far as we know, so we wont know when the setting will be fully completed. As far as I know there are writers still working on novels and short stories to flesh out the over all setting still. I look forward to more from you guys as I like what you do, so until then stay frosty.
Thanks man, it´s a great video and i liked this informations and writting class
The Settled Systems IS the closed bubble and the organization Constellation (Like Starfleet) represents the exploration of space beyond what humanity has already settled in. So i see the Settled Systems as the kiddy pool until we start to explore beyond known space.
Can't wait for when the Cosmere hits the screen. It ticks all these boxes and has the potential to become an amazing extended universe.
13:53 in Starfield there still are explorers finding out about new systems.
And Bethesda doesn’t seem to dislike big time-jumps (around 100 years of time between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, and around 200 years between Oblivion and Skyrim), so i can imagine a Starfield 2 with new technology, new factions that either rose anew or split from the factions we already know, or maybe some of those factions making a return (like the Brotherhood in Fallout, personally i never grow tired of it).
that's a solid point and something I hadn't considered. although I do think a substantial time jump between any potential sequel might alienate fans who wanted to see more in the era of the original.
Fantastic video, as always! I really like your criteria of world building, they’re good tools as well. I disagree a little about LoTR, every member of the fellowship comes from a different background, filled with possibilities of varied storytelling, an elf prince, a king in the making, a captain of Gondor, a dwarf from Erebor, a god and four hobbits. However they are all defined against Sauron and the Ring, as are all of their homes
3:34 “Cyberpunk 2077… and most tabletop RPGs”
One day the world will remember Cyberpunk 2020/RED existed before 2077
First! And loving this series so far
Have you read the silmarilion, or any middle earth content outside of the hobbit and lord of the rings?
Hot Bunking sounds like a double edge sword. It can be fun, but also terrible too!
I kinda disagree with the consistency ratings of the warhammer 40k universe. Warhammer 40k is consistent as long as you don't ask to much questions. But if you start to try and look out for social structures, commercial systems, economics regulations, people behaviour and management, political organization and sociological stuff, it starts to crumble from literally everywhere and spit blood by every hole. For example, there is no way anything can live in this universe, not because it is a permanent nightmare, but because you would run out of food in no time ... The warp is a cool narrative concept, but the Warhammer 40k has a globalized economy, with ultra-specialized world that are deeply interconnected ... Yet a trade ship can arrive on time, 400 years to late, or 400 years to early ... How the fuck are you supposed to organize any kind of logistical chain in this universe ? And that's not the only problem. Every time you try to look out for civilian stuff in the 40k universe, things don't add up. I understand it's a universe about warfare. But a universe in which I cannot imagine the life of mister nobody cannot mark a grade as high as your giving them in my humble opinion. Worldbuilding has to be a little bit more demanding in terms of self-consistency than that.
The medium matters I think, Star Wars or Mass effect can get tied dawn by there current product messing with the lore.
Warhammer is the giga chad out of the group for world building apparently.
Helps that it's been constantly and gradually worked on by teams of people for close to 40 Years and maintains a love/hate relationship with the concept of canonicity, probably the best approach tbh.
That's because the rest of them are settings for specific stories that tried to go outside of them, while both Warhammer settings are built as settings first and foremost with no central narratives ever being intended. The closest 40k comes is with the Horus Heresy, which is ten thousand years in the past of the current setting, and the fantasy settings didn't really even have that.
The central "story" of Warhammer (fantasy or 40k) is the one told by Your Dudes on the table in front of you fighting Your Opponent's Dudes on the other table edge.
40K has a series of core concepts that remain mostly consistent, regardless of the times, this is what has allowed it to reinvent itself without reinventing itself time and again.
It also helps that while there is an overarching plot and meta narrative, it isn't central, or primary or forces the universe to move with it (even as it moves the universe forward).
A great example are the ark of omen. From a storytelling perspective, what they did and their ending would be the grand climax for any other franchise, but despite its galaxy shattering consequences it is just one of many important and grand narratives that constantly happen in 40K.
The Primarchs, important and powerful though they are haven't made the Imperium or Chaos unbeatable, simply exacerbated the conflicts.
The current tyranid Invasion would break other universes, but for 40K it is just the most pressing matter in a long list of equally devastating events and yet the universe just moves along.
Even the Tau are getting their own big arc coming and yet its just one more part in the tapestry of war and stories that is 40K.
@@MehnixIsThatGuy My favourite part is there is no care for previous canon, and that itself is also canon. 1 Tau will always beat a space marine thanks to space magic, but also 1 space marine routinely slaughters 10 000 tau per mission without issue. A space marine can die from basic lazer guns, but also detonate a nuke in their hand and survive to be put back into battle. None of this is contradictory, all of it is canon, use what you like.
I think a dive of this topic would be great for the Alien RPG (and expanded universe). I’m reading the core book for the system and it is very interesting
Worlds with a clear ending can work, if everyone involved knows that the end is the end. LOTR does this pretty well. It helps that its focus is historical and so it makes sense to tell the audience that there are more intersting stories further back in time.
If you write the end to your story and then the audience comes to you desperate to know what happens next, you done effed up. Star Wars has the misfortune that future stories were planned, but then the author accidentally ended the whole thing prematurely because he thought he'd only ever get three films made. This created a whole load of confusion. Or the sequel trilogy, as it's known.
Then there's Halo, which is a video game series, and as such, there is always an expectation of sequels, regardless of what narrative sense it may or may not make. Video games do not end. They do not begin. They just keep doing the same thing over and over until something more profitable comes along.
AT-43 was an amazing setting. shame it couldn't continue some more
What kind of universe that allows characters from the Physical Universe and their Physical Forms virtualizes their minds into their Digital Forms Virtual Universe?
Star Wars isn't limited at all from becoming a massive extended universe. Disney would have to start hiring competent writers first, and their track record is to do the opposite.
\When it comes to Lord of the Rings, a lot of Tolkien's mythology existed before he ever came up with the One Ring and Sauron. The first and second ages are just chock full of incredible stories, but, again, Amazon doesn't seem keen on having competent writers to run it. Such a shame.
Random computer technician: Starnet awakening imminent.
Me: Order it to figure out storytelling process.
Starnet: [Crash].
If the setting have story, depends on if it was setup for it. Lord of the rings, was inteded for the books, not an expanded universe and thus have problems accomadating anything else, Warhammer 40k was setup for endless battles, and thus having plenty of stories works great. Things like Bipolar vs multipolar and scale of region and things that determines the long livety of the expanded universe. Having the initial story being of smaller scale is one of the better way of allowing for more content, because if you have one large scale bipolar world, then when it is over, the conflict will be over and the heroes either have to lose in some way or they win and you suddenly have to have some conflict. The real issue as much as any is that the franchise never die in the modern age. Star wars was intended for Bipolar and simple good vs evil, but had room for depth, and thus more could be fit in, same cannot be said for lord of the rings.
Would be interesting what you think about the Ace Combat Universe. I get the sense that in this series you put more emphasis in more space or fantasy series.
I haven't seen much Walking Dead, and I like to say it's because when I read the Walking Dead in the 80's, it was a black and white indie comic called DeadWorld. The zombies were created by evil magic, and there's a portal to hell that lets demons thru, and there's King Zombie, the coolest undead since Eddie, but other than that, it's the same. A small cast of regular people routinely struggles to survive, killing Z's the whole way, and cast members regularly die. It came out for many years, sometimes very sporadically, and idk what finally happened to it. Until I saw Walking Dead. The tone is very much the same, dark and ugly, violent and gory, grim and desperate. Like college.
umm, there's a big blank spot after 15:10 wasn't that supposed to be for other vidoes/patreon names?
I actually really liked Jupiter Ascending in a campy, popcorn blockbuster sort of way. I would love a sequel to explore the “Jupiter Ascending” world more.
Is the world you are making related to that labelled star chart you teased a while back? The one talking about the great convoys?
What is the ship at about 0:27 from?
I think you rated Star Wars a bit to low. But I also think that you're somewhat right. The simple fact, thar the Star Wars Galaxy feels sometimes so small is the example of this. Wherever our heroes go, for whatever reason they seem to stumble about Han, Lando, Hondo and a few other notable characters. It's fine that they encounter one of them. But nearly all of them? In a galaxy with supposedly thousands of worlds and trillions of beings? That seems s bit unlikely. BUT that's just how the writers do it. There's no necessity to do it like that in Star Wars. Btw I'm not against meeting known characters, especially when it makes sense.
Read Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere? (Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive, Elantris, Warbreaker, etc)
Ironically the worst thing that can happen to your world is having an expensive project set in it.
@@xiiir838 Well look at Star Wars it’s world has to twist and contract around any new project.
The film makers don’t give a damn about the deep lore, there in it to hopefully make an entertaining product.
Or Mass effect, where they just abandoned the world entirely in service of a game nobody liked.
And put the whole thing on ice when it failed.
@@xiiir838 That’s a good idea I guess that’s what legends is at this point.
And I’m not saying that they shouldn’t make things of curse it’s just that its inevitably gonna bungle the lore.
All four points can be achieved by keeping things local and personal. If you want it to span the entire world, don't make it about saving anybody but about traversing the entire continent. Around the World in 80 Days comes to mind. If somebody needs to be safed, make it somebody local that the MC has real reason to care about.
I'm sorry but where is the link you were referring to?
Whoops! It's been added to the description, thanks for the heads up.
ruclips.net/channel/UCJ4J_ClDpEKREfMIgnvU1rg
I play a sci-fi mobile game called Infinite Lagrange where you build a base and fleets of spacecraft to battle other players and npc factions. I've always been a nerd, wanting to design/redesign spacecraft. Everything from star trek and star wars, ships from many of the novels I've read/listened to, to IL ships.
With the easy access to 3D modeling programs I now can, but my biggest hurdle is tied to world building. Does my world have anti-gravity/gravity manipulation tech? If it has fighters, would they swoop and soar in vacuum like star wars? Or would they need thrusters like real world physics needs, or a bit of fudging like Babylon 5 did? Have lasers/phasers been scaled up to work as main batteries for capital ships, or is it limited to physical projectiles? Or are lasers limited to anti missile/torpedo defense systems? How advanced are computers/A.I.? And how reliant are the ships on them to operate?
And all this is to merely design the ships. The shear amount of effort to build the whole of the rest of world is daunting, yet exhilarating to want to try and take on.
One can EASILY expand on the Lord of the rings lore. here is how:
1. Focus on the blue Mages and their exploration of Harad , Rhun ect
2. Add peoples that were NOT focused on in LOTR like Haradrim, wild men ect to the cast of Protagonists.
3. Explore the idea of a Orc becoming good by having an Orc protagonist.
4. Make the focus of the conflict center around the Prophesied return of Morgoth.
I think one of the issues with viewing Lord of the Rings as an expanded universe type franchise is that at its core it is firmly rooted in ideas of history and mythology (as Tolkien discusses in his somewhat infamous but often hilarious and snarky preface to the second printing of the books) and as such it often runs on High Ideals and High Emotions and takes a long and slow path to tell stories. For example, in the history Tolkien crafted, the time between Sauron's deception of the Elves and the War of the Last Alliance is almost 3000 years or so but the recent show Rings of Power tries to condense that all down to a few years. While The Hobbit and LOTR are pretty fast paced by Tolkien's standards (the whole War of the Ring and quest of the Fellowship only takes a year), these are more exceptions than the rule. Also even up to his death, Tolkien was changing stuff all the time whether it was the origin of Orcs (the popular idea that they were corrupted Elves is one he dabbled with and then threw away) or the parentage of Gil-Galad the last High King of the Noldor. In other words, while it is a sandbox in a lot of ways it is also a sandbox that is somewhat limited by the person who built it in the first place. I often use the analogy of a sandbox vs a coloring book when it comes to these sorts of things to explain the difference in worldbuilding.
I wonder how Mass Effect would fare in your criteria…
2:18 alright, where's this art work from?
40k gang yooo !!!! I hope they don't mess it up
Can you critique the mortal Kombat universe. I felt it was exciting but it fails to capitalise on good potential plot elements before a reboot that retcons everything.
What's your opinion on AoS? Some would argue that it's better than 40K, but only because of evolving story and expanding lore.
Forgotten Realms represent woop woop!
We still haven't explored almost all of the remains of Zeta halo.
Amogus: Rise of Sus has the best setting imo!
That's an incredibly pathetic attempt at comedy.
I think the multipolar world is the point I understand most easily.
40k = A magician do it
I would say that the model for a post covenant. More Halo halo universe should be post napoleonic Europe. The humans would therefore represent Britain and all of the reconstituted or surviving nation's stories of instability. Is your primary conflict and when you're looking for models for that conflict, Germany (more precisely what is about to becoum Germany), Italy, Austria/Hungary, and Spain are great examples, but so is Russia and Portugal..
Starfield as a setting needs one or two changes, but I think it can easily be expanded on with not much issue. For example Starfield 2 being set 500 years after the first game with humanity expanding much further and creating more factions. Or even a DLC to Starfield where a new faction comes out of the dark, having gone further to colonise and now coming back.
I don't think it is an entirely fair critique against Halo given that from the very beginning it was about more than just Humanity Vs Covenant. In the first game there is the UNSC, Covenant, Flood and Forerunners who all have an impact on the story, this means that through fleshing out the story it is naturally inclined to becoming multipolar anyway. The sheer depth of the lore is astonishing and at the same time, while it doesn't always work and there are a few duds (such as Halo: Escalation killing of a main villain in a comic) it generally works and complements the universe, in a way which SW: Legends didn't always manage to pull off (As much as I am a fan, it can feel a bit inconsequential at times)
Starfields settled systems are just that the major "cities" one comes across and the associated star yards/stations which is split into a couple factions but honestly because of that one atmospheric spoiler earth suffered and so did the great human rallying cry which is why in the multiverse of starfield everything has gone pear shaped.
lol did anyone think the walking dead would become some attractive expanded universe? It's the most by the numbers generic zombie setting ever, and has lost almost all cultural power.
What about mass effect universe, Witcher world, metro 2033 universe
I think your view of the multipolarity (or lack thereof) in the Lord of the Rings must come from the movie only. In the books, there are many nations, peoples and factions that the free peoples are trying to unite to fight Sauron (and his red eye orcs). Saruman is a third faction with his white hand orcs. It should score at least ++ on multipolarity.
Where would you put the Dragon Ball Series?
The biggest problem for LOTR is that the story is told at the end of the world. Magic is gone, the elves are gone, the wizards are gone. Any story set afterwards pales in comparison. Any story set prior feels trivial. It's as if Tolkien started his MCU at Infinity War. After watching that, no one wants to go back and see Ant-Man.
I disagree, the wars of wrath, sinking of beleriand, rise and fall of númenor, rise and fall and rebirth of arnor and gondor and so so much more are all exceptionally impactful, even knowing that sauron is defeated and good triumphs in the end. The war of the ring pales in scope compared to much of these earlier wars, sauron was after all only the chief lieutenant of morgoth who literally created evil when the world was made. It’s like reading history, we know the world continues after the war ends yet it is still compelling to read what happened and to figure the connections from how it was to how it is now.
That the HoMe series is 12 books long says you are wrong about trivial stories before.
After? Yes. Tolkien himself stopped his sequel because it would just amount to a political thriller.
@@thelordchancellor3454 Considering you actually read the Silmarillion, I salute you. My mind was too weak for it.
@@ShiftySetax I've not finished it yet, I made it through the chapter on beren and luthien this morning. I'm just a tolkien nerd lol
@@thelordchancellor3454 It's like the Bible, you get points for trying!😉