It's Always Summer on a Star - Summer Camp '24
Yippee!
Homework Week 1: Get Organized
Assignment 1
Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other functional points.Okay, a decent bit of unpacking is going to be done. I haven't done a lot of worldbuilding in the lore sector of The Celestial Grove. Most of the work so far is general technological worldbuilding with a few prompt responses from past events. However, I have thought about events which have been kept private until now. There is one big event I want to focus on from the start: the Intergalactic Great War. This conflict is a massive war between the Confederacy of the Quadriarma and the Emuligar Republic and many other nations fighting on either sides to further their own personal agenda. However, the big two aren't fighting for their ideology or resource access despite what the populace thinks. Instead they are fighting over the very fabric of the universe. Here, I will just put some important changes into a bullet point list because is more convenient for me.
- Advancements in theories of quantum science and string field manipulation
- Advancements in theories of genetic manipulation and the origin of life
- Discovery of the Ngladeni and Kapisan
- Popularizing belief that the Trotans and Nastera are engineered species rather that naturally evolving
- Rapidly devolving civil stability due to rapidly changing belief structures
- Complete destruction of critical wormhole infrastructure resulting in societal collapse
Assignment 2
Based on this, decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!
I might have a lot of time during July, or not. It depends on the career change I plan on going for this summer. Regardless, I should have a decent amount of time to be doing worldbuilding and with no traveling plans (something that was often while in high school) concentration shouldn't be an issue. So I am going to challenge myself. I am going to attempt to write at least 16 articles for The Celestial Grove.
Assignment 3
Get your categories and tags organized!Categories are pretty fine right now and I have created a large selection of them for article subjects that don't exist yet. Tags may be troublesome. I don't particularly know how tags work. I also don't know how to organize them. I might just create a register of every tag I use so I don't have a random selection of synonymous tags.
Homework Week 2
Assignment 1
Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.This is a most interesting problem to ponder. The Celestial Grove isn't overly dramatic and is typically decently safe, but the characters of the story line I want to start with are definitely going to need some refuge. There are multiple angles to attack this from. I can go personal and I can go technical. Ship crews are tightly knit together. They know each other well and, ideally, respect each other completely. Even when there is nowhere safe to go, they should always have each other. Now, there are technical fallbacks. A vessel's crew section is called the "citadel" and built like one they are. Self-contained, armored, and buried behind the hull and equipment, the citadel is well protected. Small ships might lack this protection however. Gunships are built very lightly and can only withstand the occasional micrometeor. Usually though, they some carrier or another larger vessel operating nearby. If a gunship is operating, it is probably designed to be stealthy - to blend in with space itself. Those are some ideas at least. There is definitely more to come up with. We'll see what Summer Camp prompts are to be had that allow me to consider places of refuge.
Assignment 2
Find a community—whether that’s our Discord server, Facebook Group, your RPG or friend group, or something else.Oh I have this one down. I typically post my writings to a couple of servers related to a game I play (do you guys even read them?) Other then that, I recently created a Twitter account mainly for the sake of keeping track of some stuff but I can most certainly use that to share my work. There are a couple other Discord communities I could share to, one being the WA Discord itself, but my engagement in them is minimal so I am unsure how it would go.
Assignment 3 & 4
Find ways to improve styling and layout in your world! If you’re a CSS wizard, maybe take the time now to give it a polish!Oh I would very much enjoy creating an entirely new style to the world pages. Unfortunately, the Modern Spaceships theme is somewhat antiquated and difficult to work with given my limited CSS knowledge. If I were to update styling, I would likely create my own theme from the ground up. In the process, I would also try to learn other stuff such as graphic design and art to add some character. This is all daunting.
Update on the bit about creating my own theme from the ground up:
I managed to whip up a basic theme in a couple hours using the Whiteout base. Suddenly I have a lot more confidence in what I want to do.
Homework Week 3
Assignment 1
Theme: Beliefs - Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.Oh, hey! I have done this one already! Not on paper or anything but I have definitely thought extensively about this. The Celestial Grove is wrought with conspiracy theories and constant battles between spiritual beliefs, religions, and scientific theory. It is a dynamic and holy heck does it become unstable at times. Various events from the Trotan and Nastera contact, to the discovery of pre-historic alien civilizations have rocked scientific and religious communities to the core. But nothing hit so hard as making contact with a living Ngladeni. Imagine this scenario: government scientists discover a cryogenic capsule capable of surviving conditions of the lithosphere (the boundary between solid surface material and the superheated mantle of a planet) in which a hundred million old alien species is kept alive by just as ancient monolithic structures powered by planetary heat. This person, and hundreds more like them who were very likely destroyed, just so happens to have been created to control technology that alters the vibrational state of non-dimensional particles. Y'know. the thing that was theorized for hundreds of years that makes up all fundamental particles. Oh yeah, by the way, some members of this species might be involved in the creation of the Trotans and Nastera. Problem is those people might not exist anymore. It should be easy to see how that news would change society fundamentally and very quickly. Of course, that was heavily summarized and still remains unwritten. What truly happens is yet to be created.
Assignment 2 & 3
Create a bank of inspirations! Quotes, music, description of experiences and shower thoughts, etc. Find art and pictures that inspire you, and grab a map if you don't have one (and need one).Oh I have a music bank and a small collection of photographs that inspired a few things in the setting. Got that Youtube music playlist I constantly update to match moods and themes. I use a private Discord server to organize on the spot thoughts, quotes, and anything else that inspires me. Not particularly efficient, but it works. There is also a wide collection of various artwork, images, and diagrams of so many things that I have collected that may or may not be used to breed ideas or simply to inspire me.
Assignment 4
Check your inspirations again. Are they still relevant? Can you find any that better represent the current state of your project?I don't usually clear out my inspirations. Most are still relevant in some way, but the few that are irrelevant I still hold on too because they have some value in reminding me what the project used to be like. Sometimes old inspirations return to relevancy. You don't know until it happens.
Homework Week 4
Assignment 1
Theme: Decay - Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.By the start of the stories, there is already some form of decay going on in places. To start, the Grove's most powerful nation is undergoing an economic recession. Overall, the population of both the Trotans and Nastera are declining and migration rates slow so regions that are experiencing population growth aren't replenishing those that are experiencing a drop. Political decay is also an issue. The Quadriarma experiences a schism of sorts that alienates the public to the government and the military while the military feels cheated out by the government. Faulty or deliberate withholding of vital information results in disastrous actions that warm an otherwise invisible cold war. When the people are strained and society reaches its climax, the fabric that held it together rips apart and everyone is left stranded on islands of stars, unable to see beyond their pockets of space. Some regions with the capacity to independently maintain their own wormhole gates keep connected to the solar systems around them. Others, however, are not as fortunate. As reserves dwindle and attempted evacuations burn through the exotic matter used to maintain wormholes even quicker than usual, many connections are left to controlled collapse. It may seem odd that the gates need to be controlled all the way through their shutdown but it is absolutely necessary. As a wormhole contracts, matter gets annihilated as it contacts the inner edge. This energy gets absorbed and will be dissipated one way or the other. If a wormhole is not slowly shrunk then it will simply collapse with increasing speed, sweeping up matter faster and faster until all that energy gets released all at once. The greater mass inside, the more energy there is. It would be tough to shut down wormholes which will strand millions of people. I promise The Celestial Grove isn't as dark as it seems. It is meant to pretty bright regardless of what is happening.
Assignment 2
If you like special tea when you write, stock up for a month. Tidy your office, make a “do not disturb” sign, and think about any other last-minute strategies to optimize your writing space and time!This month I ordered a new computer monitor and a larger desk that way I have more space. Before I struggled with having to be close to a small monitor that often strained my eyes and made it hard to be comfortable. I also had a lot of stuff scattered about my old desk that was distracting. This new setup includes a monitor that is easier on my eyes and is positioned in a place that gets much better natural light. Included shelves to my left hand side offer more space including a cubby for my computer tower so it is out of the way. Being next to a window allows me to get a breeze which keeps me comfortable. If there isn't a breeze, well, I now have a fan positioned just right to create the same effect. Anything beyond that is optimizing workflow and limiting distractions. By having Discord set up on my second monitor I can actually read active conversations without having to tab out. (Yes, I can read and write at the same time if I am in a flow state.) One bothersome issue is actually getting into a flow state and remaining concentrated for long enough. The latter is down more to luck. By having my window open I expose myself to noisy pickups, UTVs, and golf carts. Would you believe me if I said heavy farm equipment is quieter than most people's vehicles?
Assignment 3
Review your world homepage to hook potential readers!Finishyourhomepage. Finishyourhomepage. Finishyourhomepage.
No. (I will get there I promise plz don't hurt me.)
I do need to review the homepage pitch. Once I get the New and Improved™ CSS theme done I will finish a world introduction I was working on a while back. There were also directory articles I had created for stuff like organizations and locations but I haven't properly set them up yet. Supposedly there is a way to create an article list using tags and organize them alphabetically.
Assignment 4
Take a look at your author profile and pillar articles on your world and polish them!I recently cleared out my author's profile of a lot of stuff such as the interest prompts and what not believing that I would go back and fill them out. I know I wouldn't. Suppose this is now the time to do that since it is part of the SC homework. What few pillar articles there are haven't been fully written yet. The problem with me writing them is that what I want to do can change very quickly and most often in the process of writing them. I find it more efficient to ignore them and let the process figure it out for me. That is because the setting is supposed to be partially story-driven. If the stories were more setting driven then it might be easier to create pillar articles.
Best of luck with the career change! I hope that goes well and still gives you plenty of time to reach your silvered goal :D If you want ideas on how to use tags, definitely ask in the summercamp discord channel! People will be happy to share inspiration and information.
✏️ Take a WA unofficial survey
⛱️ Vacation with ghosts in Su-mehr Qiamp
Thank you very much! I will ask around for advice on organizing tags whenever I get to them, but for now I am little hooked on getting other stuff organized like a new theme.