How Do You Concoct a Science Fiction Universe with Plenty of Elbow Room?

Different science fiction writers have produced every kind of world imaginable and for many different reasons.  A very large chunk of writers did this because they wanted a paycheck and they were told that science fiction was the golden way.  And depending on how talented they were, the stories they wrote were more or less interesting, memorable and coherent.

The earliest of these stories were cobbled together based on an author’s understanding of other genre literature.  So, if the writer wrote cowboy stories previously, then we got Showdown at the Betelgeuse Corral or some such thing.  And in the grand scheme of things that’s not really the worst outcome.  I mean, if our western author is a good story teller then the Showdown may be a very interesting space cowboy story.  And who doesn’t like space cowboys?

But if science fiction should include some world-building that actually has something to do with science then an author should go the next stage and make some kind of hand-waving exercise to justify the technology being used.  You know, warp drive fueled by matter/anti-matter mediated by di-lithium crystals that provide the warpity-warpity part (somehow).  Okay sure.

Now you have the means for a story but why is it?  Who is doing what to whom?  And here is where the cowboy story might be just what you want.  Or maybe it’s the Roman Empire writ large or space Arabia with monstrous spice sandworms or the American Revolution on Luna or Vietnam in space or, or, or.  Whatever gives you a good idea for a story with humans or humans and aliens or just aliens.

And if you want the story to be really worthwhile, well, learn enough about humans to write them somewhat convincingly.  Of course, this is going above and beyond.  There were (and probably are) plenty of writers who apparently have never spoken to or even bumped into living humans.  So, they’re forced to base their characterizations on themselves and thereby end up with some truly weird conversations and interactions.

Now, all of these things are on my to-do list for my foray into sf but I want one more ingredient.  I desire my world building to be the basis for more than one story or even one series.  I’m ambitious.  I think of Heinlein building his “Future History” timeline with its torch ships, terra-forming, social crises and advances in medicine and longevity and the first halting steps to the stars.  Now that’s the way to do it.  Build up a framework that will allow for a whole suite of related but not interlocking stories.  Give yourself some guidelines and parameters but leave plenty of elbow room for different events, characters, locales, times and moods.  I want to make sure I don’t paint myself into any corners so I need some kind of overall outline that I’ve thought through.  That way I’ll be satisfied with whatever restrictions are involved.  For instance, maybe in this universe there isn’t any working star drive and maybe there never will be.  Or maybe the sun is dying and my Earth is working out a crash program to send colonists in suspended animation to every solar system that’s been telescopically identified in the hope that at least some of them will survive.  Or maybe a universe where the aliens found us and have put us in a remedial program to become less stupid and we have an enormous inferiority complex that is causing terminal ennui.  Whatever the setup is I’ll have mentally signed off on it.

So that’s what I’m working on (in a sort of retroactive way).  I want to build a world that my sniper story can be nested into.  I like the idea of our real world being reflected in a story with a way of resolving the problems we have run up against.  But I think I have to put a lot more potential in the story beyond the political conflict.  So, I’m trying to look at the big picture and add as many gee-whiz angles to make it more fun.  I think I may add cold fusion to the mix.  I’ve always liked the idea of some research into some of the heavier metals providing some unhoped-for breakthroughs in advanced physics.  Maybe not as drastic as the E. E. Smith trick that gives his Skylark characters a star drive but definitely limitless and elegant power production.  It’s definitely cheating but I’m thinking about it.

But all this big picture stuff is hurting my head so it’s a tough slog.  But I think it’s the right order of operation.