I thought it might be interesting to have a thread for discussing fictional worlds and lore in general.
It can be concerning films, games, TV, comics, you name it. What defines a fictional world/universe? Are there any essential ingredients that make up a good one? Why are they so popular? Why might a Star Wars fan care more about the intricacies of that fictional world, rather than the real one we inhabit? Is fictional world-building always a good thing, or can there be downsides?
What's your favourite fictional universe (and why)? Or do you think it's a load of old hooey?
I really like the idea of expansive fictional universes, but I've never really found one that's grabbed me, or that I've been able to make the time to really get to know.
I've enjoyed reading Dune recently, and I know there's more books in that universe, and I really liked the way the chapters all opened with quotes from in universe writings from years after the events actually happening. Might well pick up the next in that series.
I also want to make a start on the Discworld books, as I've never read them before, but that feels like an incredibly daunting prospect.
For me it has to be A Song of Ice and Fire/Westeros. George R.R. Martin has created such a wonderful world filled with history that back before the last season of Game of Thrones (when it went to pot sadly), I’d spend far too long reading about.
Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth would be a very close second, with Star Wars being 3rd but that’s a odd one where the quality of the universe seems to change over time as things are made canon and removed from canon as they see fit.
I used to be heavily invested in the Marvel universe, and Transformers (generation 1) but not so much any more. Oh and I was pretty heavily into Vampire the Masquerade lore. I probably wouldn't be able to answer much on any of those anymore. In a more casual sense, Star Wars and Trek maybe?
The Culture is hands down one of the best. The thought of hurtling from one side of a galaxy to the other with a million, billion or trillion other beings doing stupid gooseberry fool like going down lava rapids to hold off the ennui of long life. One of the more impressive Utopia universes. Pitty Banks died.
Last edited by Xeno on Sat Oct 02, 2021 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It has loads of fantastic characters and novels from some pretty amazing authors and a history spanning many centuries. The stories also include adventures into other planes with Demons and Devils aplenty and the Underdark with the Drow Elves.
It often gets dismissed as just nonsense but they really have fleshed out a pretty great world with tones of lore and backstory for characters, cities and even conflicts between the Gods.
It's been discontinued now but I have to give a mention to Dragonlance which is also a D&D setting as it has one of the most iconic stories in the genre in The Dragonlance Chronicles. A story about The War of the Lance and the heroes who fought in it that kicked off a campaign setting that lasted decades and was loved by millions of D&D fans worldwide .
Warhanner 40k has an insane amount of lore surrounding it that is constantly being added to, and I love it. Feels like a lot of stuff that's been years in the making is starting to approach it's peak. Necron awakenings, the increasing Tyranid presence, the failing Golden Throne and thee return of a Primarch all happening together, I really am looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.
As long as there's stuff to dig into. It's all well and good having an interesting setting for your story, but if you can't really look more than 20 years or 20 miles from the story's boundaries, then who cares?
It's why I like FFXIV's worldbuilding. There are currently 8 distinct historical periods in the game's lore, 9 if you count time travel shenanigans. The world is also spanning 3 continents, roughly covering the same area as Eurasia, as well as having essentially Australia and the Americas mentioned heavily in the lore, but not yet seen in game. There are also multiple alternate dimensions that we know of, each with their own separate histories. And while the current era draws heavily on real world inspirations (Such as Hingashi, Nagxia, and the Azim Steppe basically just being fantasy Japan, China, and Mongolia) the previous eras are usually well detailed and unique.
Many questlines explore what the Allagan empire, for example, was up to the in the 4th Astral Era: including their founding, their expansions across the 3 great continents, their troubles with the Bozjans, their war with the continent of Meracydia and their dragons, the construction of the crystal tower, the harnessing of summoning magic, their attempts to commune with the void, and their eventual collapse in the 5th umbral calamity. And that's just one side of one era. And all in game. That's not even touching on the era War of the Magi, or the Amaurotians, or what happened 1000 years ago in the current era with the likes of the city state of Bela'diah and how it fractured into Ul'Dah and Sil'Dih, or even touching on the dozens of short stories that have been put out or the 3 large lorebooks that can only summarise what's actually there.
FFXIV has so much potential for stories, and is gone into in so much depth while still being relevant to the current setting that you can point to any spot on the map in any era and Koji will go "Ok, here's what the Mhachi were up to 2000 years ago. It was some bullshit."
Hyperion. Honestly don't know why it doesn't get more credit as it's such a beautifully woven narrative encompassing technology, religion, politics, space travel, time manipulation. I find it the most vividly depicted Sci-Fi world I've ever encountered. You get a genuine understanding of how the world works in a very grounded way and the fact Simmons makes these planet hopping narratives take place in a world like that really brings them alive
On a gaming front Zelda obviously is the thing I've been drawn to the most since it became my primary hobby 20 years ago. I find the line it treads between folktale mythology and LotR fantasy to be wonderfully judged. Perhaps better than any other long running narrative as well I find Zelda goes out of its way to allow for audience participation in its lore. You can see this in the Zelda YouTube industry that has sprung up since BotW in particular, but it's clearly existed far before that. Nintendo are experts at giving fans just enough detail to run with and come up with their own back stories.
Probably my favourite cross media lore is the Alien franchise. There's certainly more of it than the two above and it varies in quality wildly buy there's at least 3 great films, half a dozen great comics, 1 excellent game and various other stuff that's expanded on snippets. The Weyland Yutani company is probably the most centrally interesting aspect of the lore to it and throughout everything it's excellent that they've managed to maintain this shadowy mystique around it. Things have crossed over into boring exposition at times but that's generally rare. The comics have some really wild stuff in with the building of religion around the xenomorphs, exploiting them for LSD style drug purposes and the multitude of other biological and other scientific uses. It goes in so many directions, it's great to dip in and out.
Captain Kinopio wrote:Hyperion. Honestly don't know why it doesn't get more credit as it's such a beautifully woven narrative encompassing technology, religion, politics, space travel, time manipulation. I find it the most vividly depicted Sci-Fi world I've ever encountered. You get a genuine understanding of how the world works in a very grounded way and the fact Simmons makes these planet hopping narratives take place in a world like that really brings them alive
It is a very interesting universe. I did like the thought of Yggdrasil, 1km long treeship.
Lagamorph wrote:Warhanner 40k has an insane amount of lore surrounding it that is constantly being added to, and I love it. Feels like a lot of stuff that's been years in the making is starting to approach it's peak. Necron awakenings, the increasing Tyranid presence, the failing Golden Throne and thee return of a Primarch all happening together, I really am looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.
Unfortunately GW have had that lore on the brink of something important happening for the last 15 years!
I do still enjoy the 40k lore, particularly the Horus Heresy series.
I absolutely adore the Gundam universe recently. The 'universal century' timeline is my favourite part, the amount of references to older series they put in and it just makes sense as it's all connected I absolutely love. The United Earth Federation are cool, but then as time goes on they become more and more corrupt and the people at the top care less and less about the people they swore to protect and by the end of the UC timeline they're basically a shell of what they once were.
There's so much intrigue, so many interesting little stories and so many characters who appear and disappear as the timeline continues and it's great.
I like the LOTR setting, it's cohesive and follows a clear idea for what Tolkien wanted to depict.
That being said, I also have a soft spot for the Warhammer 40K setting. It's a vast, messy and often nonsensical clusterfuck that's been steadily added to and rewritten for the past 40 years by a huge amount of people. It is hard to tell what is canon, in so far as canon exists in 40k, and a lot of the gooseberry fool present now is stupid but that's part of the charm. There's such a huge sense of scale and oppressive violence to it. I do think it's sad that the initial satire is now obscured and torn apart under years of people not understanding it though.
I've simply never come across a fictional universe with the depth of Tolkien's whilst also being as utterly consistent. It's like a never-ending rabbit hole that always perfectly joins up. What Tolkien created almost beggars belief, as in there's no way a single person could have created that. But he did.
That's not talking about whether it's my favourite fictional universe, but it's the one I objectively put on a pedestal above all others and have the most regard for. Which are two different things I guess.