- Have you ever seen Titan AE? It's an old old animated sci fi movie and it's got a ton of aliens, it's almost an alien cosmopoly. What if we go to space and find it CROWDED with Aliens, such that it's almost mundane? I've never liked that idea for my own stories because I like to focus on the paranoia and tribalism inherent in humanity; but we might have an opportunity here where we can have fun with it. Indonesia rises to space and finds that its....basically just another pawn in a giant xenogenetic soup, kind of like Indonesia was in Earth. It would be a funny/interesting subversion. So i'm open to anything. But I think something that would have to be required is that if Aliens come to earth, they aren't allowed to leave indonesia. Can't risk another country getting alien technology. But then...another country kidnapping an alien could be one of our storylines.
SPACE ELEVATORS
Absolutely no objections whatsoever to how you've explained this. Love it. The Napoleon figure, it's cool that Indonesia already has a word/idiom for nationalist politics of this sort. I second the notion that the alien word for human is Indonesian--that's a fascinating artifact that ABSOLUTELY would happen. Wait this was in the politics section.
POLITICS
What is a historical political unit in Indonesian history/culture? Something like tribes or villages? What if we reverted to that for the SPACE aspect of Indonesia, but maximized it for working in space? So instead of being a village in indonesia, what if it was how they governed MARS or something? The central indonesian government has nominal control, but can't exercise it. But they do hold the military cards, so it's almost like the space-polities have a lot of leeway but if a bad headline makes its way to HQ an armada might show up and the central government will forcibly restore peace/reset whatever problem is going on. This DEFINITELY sets up room for some far-flung polities to try very hard to be disconnected from HQ, and can maybe go to great lengths to achieve it.
We have to make some decisions about FTL too. If we make it too hard, it adds a constraint to our storytelling and could be a fun limitation to work within. If we make it too easy, it becomes like flying an airplane to another city, so our narrative focus has to be on something elsewhere. I'm open to both--especially if we choose "fun" over "science" for aliens.
All in all, great thoughts! Starting to put some meat on the bones here!
Thanks for your reply, Scoot. Here’s what I think…
Aliens
I haven’t watched Titan AE, though I’ve heard of it. Personally, I’m not planning to go full Star Wars in terms of the aliens. I’m actually with you in that I don’t really like that kind of portrayals of aliens and would rather show ‘human tribalism’ instead.
Not sure about you, but I’d rather focus on Earth (and the inner workings of this Indonesian empire). Though given the span of the universe, I can see some stories taking place in some distant systems. It depends on how it goes.
You brought up an important part about the alien technology thing. When I brought up aliens in Jakarta, I’m thinking of ‘foreign quarters’ in old China/Japan where European merchants come in and settle. I do like the idea of aliens on Earth being generally restricted to Indonesia. Perhaps we can have a story in which an alien (a diplomat, perhaps) was able to receive permission from the Indonesian government to go to America (with a bodyguard), and he (or maybe a she) was able to see the other side of Earth. It’ll be a mirror of your story of an American immigrant to Jakarta trying to get into space.
Space Elevators
Glad we agreed. Personally, I’m seeing this Indonesian space empire putting even more of an emphasis on Pancasila. Out of universe, this is something that I’m hoping would differentiate Bima Sakti from other sci-fi/space opera universes.
An interesting tidbit is how the first tenet of Pancasila is ‘Belief in One and Only God’. This made things very complicated for Hindus, and as a result Balinese Hinduism has a monotheistic kick to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acintya
I’m thinking of how to apply this ‘aggressive Pancasila’ to outer space. It might give a sort missionary kick to the Indonesian space empire, but not necessarily in a ‘space jihad’ kind of way (though I’m not ruling that out either).
But I think it also depends on the ethnic groups also. For my own ethnic group, the Batak, family relations really played an important part in how you address other people. I’m playing with the idea of the Batak (for example) creating a feudal realm where each family/clan has their own planet as a fief.
Of course, Indonesia also has its fair share of empires like the Srivijaya and the Majapahit.
All this is to say that I do like the idea of space colonial societies being traditional while Earth Indonesia (or at least Jakarta, which regardless of the capital situation should be the HQ of the “Space Command”) is as cosmopolitan as you can get.
Now, FTL time. I don’t want to make FTL being too easy. Maybe instead of flying an airplane to another city it should be like taking a boat to another continent. Reachable, but distant enough that most people don’t really leave their homeworlds. It would also give an Age of Exploration feel to the galaxy, which is what I’m going for (this project was inspired by the Portuguese Empire, after all).
I will always choose fun over science in my stories. But it depends on what fun are we talking about. I don’t want to turn this into Star Wars with an Indonesian coat of paint.
Again, great points. We might be close to the point where can finally put in something concrete.
I like where you're heading with the FTL idea. Star Wars and Star Trek make FTL travel seem too easy. Anybody can go anywhere (essentially). But if you limit yourself to our current technology, you'll never get anywhere, because one voyage would take hundreds or even a thousand or more years. That would be boring - unless your story was about the voyage itself, which clearly it is not. Finding a middle ground will make the story more interesting because it means there is a cost for traveling to other planets, but it's not completely unattainable. Perhaps that means using some type of wormhole or jump gate to enter a type of hyperspace - another dimension of space-time that doesn't provide instant access to the destination, but cuts the travel time down considerably.
When we think of wormholes, we typically illustrate it using a piece of paper folded in half and then creating a hole that passes through a corresponding point in both sheets allowing for near instantaneous travel between those points. Maybe you could explain the folding of space time more like an accordion with multiple folds. It still reduces the distance travelled between origin and destination, but could allow for limitations like the number of folds a ship could pass through before needing to return to normal space. Give those folds a name (like a unit of measure) and you've got yourself a great way to moderate the difficulty level of interstellar space travel.
The geopolitics I'm most interested in after reading this is during the embryonic stage of Space Indonesia. How is China held at bay, and to a lesser degree India? Both have ambitious space programs, large militaries, and seemingly wish to break free of the American yoke.
This is really cool to watch be fleshed out in real time, thanks for posting 🙂
I really like what you'r working on here! It's very cool that the two of you have teamed up to work on this project. I hope to participate in something like this in the future.
When I saw "Space Elevators," I had to see what was going on in this post. Space Elevators is one of my all-time favorite science fiction concepts. As I've been trying to zero in on what I want the main themes to be in The Artifact, I've settled on writing a lot more about space elevators, airships, and the hollow Earth, not necessarily all at the same time, but you know what I mean. Those are the concepts I enjoy the most, so I'm looking for ways to incorporate them into my stories. In fact, I'm writing a three-part backstory for one of my characters, and it involves a terrible incident (accident? act of sabotage?) on a space elevator.
I'm really looking forward to reading more about Bima Sakti!
This is wonderful, I have lots of thoughts.
ALIENS
- Have you ever seen Titan AE? It's an old old animated sci fi movie and it's got a ton of aliens, it's almost an alien cosmopoly. What if we go to space and find it CROWDED with Aliens, such that it's almost mundane? I've never liked that idea for my own stories because I like to focus on the paranoia and tribalism inherent in humanity; but we might have an opportunity here where we can have fun with it. Indonesia rises to space and finds that its....basically just another pawn in a giant xenogenetic soup, kind of like Indonesia was in Earth. It would be a funny/interesting subversion. So i'm open to anything. But I think something that would have to be required is that if Aliens come to earth, they aren't allowed to leave indonesia. Can't risk another country getting alien technology. But then...another country kidnapping an alien could be one of our storylines.
SPACE ELEVATORS
Absolutely no objections whatsoever to how you've explained this. Love it. The Napoleon figure, it's cool that Indonesia already has a word/idiom for nationalist politics of this sort. I second the notion that the alien word for human is Indonesian--that's a fascinating artifact that ABSOLUTELY would happen. Wait this was in the politics section.
POLITICS
What is a historical political unit in Indonesian history/culture? Something like tribes or villages? What if we reverted to that for the SPACE aspect of Indonesia, but maximized it for working in space? So instead of being a village in indonesia, what if it was how they governed MARS or something? The central indonesian government has nominal control, but can't exercise it. But they do hold the military cards, so it's almost like the space-polities have a lot of leeway but if a bad headline makes its way to HQ an armada might show up and the central government will forcibly restore peace/reset whatever problem is going on. This DEFINITELY sets up room for some far-flung polities to try very hard to be disconnected from HQ, and can maybe go to great lengths to achieve it.
We have to make some decisions about FTL too. If we make it too hard, it adds a constraint to our storytelling and could be a fun limitation to work within. If we make it too easy, it becomes like flying an airplane to another city, so our narrative focus has to be on something elsewhere. I'm open to both--especially if we choose "fun" over "science" for aliens.
All in all, great thoughts! Starting to put some meat on the bones here!
Thanks for your reply, Scoot. Here’s what I think…
Aliens
I haven’t watched Titan AE, though I’ve heard of it. Personally, I’m not planning to go full Star Wars in terms of the aliens. I’m actually with you in that I don’t really like that kind of portrayals of aliens and would rather show ‘human tribalism’ instead.
Not sure about you, but I’d rather focus on Earth (and the inner workings of this Indonesian empire). Though given the span of the universe, I can see some stories taking place in some distant systems. It depends on how it goes.
You brought up an important part about the alien technology thing. When I brought up aliens in Jakarta, I’m thinking of ‘foreign quarters’ in old China/Japan where European merchants come in and settle. I do like the idea of aliens on Earth being generally restricted to Indonesia. Perhaps we can have a story in which an alien (a diplomat, perhaps) was able to receive permission from the Indonesian government to go to America (with a bodyguard), and he (or maybe a she) was able to see the other side of Earth. It’ll be a mirror of your story of an American immigrant to Jakarta trying to get into space.
Space Elevators
Glad we agreed. Personally, I’m seeing this Indonesian space empire putting even more of an emphasis on Pancasila. Out of universe, this is something that I’m hoping would differentiate Bima Sakti from other sci-fi/space opera universes.
An interesting tidbit is how the first tenet of Pancasila is ‘Belief in One and Only God’. This made things very complicated for Hindus, and as a result Balinese Hinduism has a monotheistic kick to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acintya
I’m thinking of how to apply this ‘aggressive Pancasila’ to outer space. It might give a sort missionary kick to the Indonesian space empire, but not necessarily in a ‘space jihad’ kind of way (though I’m not ruling that out either).
This section should be called Religion, lol.
Politics
I would say that the historical political unit in Indonesia is the village, also known as a ‘kampung’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampong
But I think it also depends on the ethnic groups also. For my own ethnic group, the Batak, family relations really played an important part in how you address other people. I’m playing with the idea of the Batak (for example) creating a feudal realm where each family/clan has their own planet as a fief.
Pardon the link to Indonesian wikipedia, but here’s a list of Batak clans/families, so just so you where I’m coming from: https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daftar_marga_Batak
Of course, Indonesia also has its fair share of empires like the Srivijaya and the Majapahit.
All this is to say that I do like the idea of space colonial societies being traditional while Earth Indonesia (or at least Jakarta, which regardless of the capital situation should be the HQ of the “Space Command”) is as cosmopolitan as you can get.
Now, FTL time. I don’t want to make FTL being too easy. Maybe instead of flying an airplane to another city it should be like taking a boat to another continent. Reachable, but distant enough that most people don’t really leave their homeworlds. It would also give an Age of Exploration feel to the galaxy, which is what I’m going for (this project was inspired by the Portuguese Empire, after all).
I will always choose fun over science in my stories. But it depends on what fun are we talking about. I don’t want to turn this into Star Wars with an Indonesian coat of paint.
Again, great points. We might be close to the point where can finally put in something concrete.
I like where you're heading with the FTL idea. Star Wars and Star Trek make FTL travel seem too easy. Anybody can go anywhere (essentially). But if you limit yourself to our current technology, you'll never get anywhere, because one voyage would take hundreds or even a thousand or more years. That would be boring - unless your story was about the voyage itself, which clearly it is not. Finding a middle ground will make the story more interesting because it means there is a cost for traveling to other planets, but it's not completely unattainable. Perhaps that means using some type of wormhole or jump gate to enter a type of hyperspace - another dimension of space-time that doesn't provide instant access to the destination, but cuts the travel time down considerably.
When we think of wormholes, we typically illustrate it using a piece of paper folded in half and then creating a hole that passes through a corresponding point in both sheets allowing for near instantaneous travel between those points. Maybe you could explain the folding of space time more like an accordion with multiple folds. It still reduces the distance travelled between origin and destination, but could allow for limitations like the number of folds a ship could pass through before needing to return to normal space. Give those folds a name (like a unit of measure) and you've got yourself a great way to moderate the difficulty level of interstellar space travel.
I use Isaac Arthur as my source of Sci-Fi ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g/videos
Holy smokes - this guy is prolific! I'm definitely going to check out some of his videos for inspiration.
The geopolitics I'm most interested in after reading this is during the embryonic stage of Space Indonesia. How is China held at bay, and to a lesser degree India? Both have ambitious space programs, large militaries, and seemingly wish to break free of the American yoke.
This is really cool to watch be fleshed out in real time, thanks for posting 🙂
Think of the Chinese diaspora into the south china sea. Singapore comes to mind.
And the impoverishment of Vancouver and California as the Chinese pack up for space. Your on a good track with this.
I really like what you'r working on here! It's very cool that the two of you have teamed up to work on this project. I hope to participate in something like this in the future.
When I saw "Space Elevators," I had to see what was going on in this post. Space Elevators is one of my all-time favorite science fiction concepts. As I've been trying to zero in on what I want the main themes to be in The Artifact, I've settled on writing a lot more about space elevators, airships, and the hollow Earth, not necessarily all at the same time, but you know what I mean. Those are the concepts I enjoy the most, so I'm looking for ways to incorporate them into my stories. In fact, I'm writing a three-part backstory for one of my characters, and it involves a terrible incident (accident? act of sabotage?) on a space elevator.
I'm really looking forward to reading more about Bima Sakti!