By B. Ganders
For Sherry and Mei, who I should have come up to the stars for a lot sooner.
___________
Fen.
This is the name given to those who have left the planet using the power of handwavium. Over the years, tens of thousands of people from all around the world have come up to what used to be called outer space and made it their home. Each one taking a little bit of their own culture with them, along with their hopes and dreams. But you don't hear about groups of eurpeans putting together a martial arts style for cyborgs. You don't hear about a bunch of american girls making a fantasy kingdom on the moon. You DO hear about how the Fen fought a war in space, colonized a planet outside the solar system, and are terraforming Venus.
As an American I couldn't help but draw certain nostalgic paralells, even though like a great many people on the ground I thought most Fen were a little nuts.
Then I came up and realized two things.
The first, is that while on Earth you tend to hear about the Fen as a whole, they're actually splintered into dozens and dozens of factions. And each one has it's own quirks, values, and ideas about how the universe should work. People still hold onto parts of their earth heritage, but they also tend to gain a whole new nationality in Fenspace that has nothing to with where they were born.
The second thing, is that the Fen aren't a little nuts. They are, and I say this in the most respectful way possible, completely insane.
These are the people that left the planet on flying vehicles made with a dangerous substance that, to this day, no one has any idea whatsoever on how it functions, where it came from and is considered fairly unpredictable at best. They then decided to build space-craft, cities and entire societies based on comic books, scifi novels, and TV shows. In some cases, they even change their own bodies to better fit with their ideals on how things should be.
And, against all odds, they make this work for them. Fenspace is a melting pot of cultures and rivalries that manages to flourish in the unforgiving expanse of space.
It's no utopia, of course. The Boskone War wreaked havoc across the solar system, destroying entire cities and hundreds of lives. Crime still exists, and accidents still happen.
But the Fen continue to build the society of their dreams. In orbit around Earth, a hotel mogul plans yet another expansion to his business empire, while on Mars a cyborg teaches those still new to their wings how to fly. It's easy to get caught up in the impossible things that happen everyday.
This book is meant to be a more in depth guide to the city of Crystal Tokyo in Fenspace. Partly because covering all of Fenspace in one book would be problematic at best, and partly because while you can find lots of facts and figures about various factions and cities, presuming you know where to look, you don't hear a lot about their day to day life. I chose Crystal Tokyo as the starting point for this little venture, partialy because I happen to live there and partialy because it's the headquarters of the Crystal Millenium, one of the six major factions of Fenspace.
Whether you've never been up to Fenspace, or were one of the first ones up here, I hope you enjoy this book and find it informative.
A/N: Thus, I begin yet another project when I really should be working on something else.
The Cultural Guide is basically meant as a more interesting way of fleshing out the various factions and locations of Fenspace. It's going to be a composition of interviews, city walkthroughs, little anecdotes, commentary, and whatever the hell else I can think of to make things more lifelike.
The lens I'm doing this all through is Benjamin Ganders, from Legacy Project. Who's writing this as a book for Fen and Dane alike, from the perspective of a guy who's making the transition from Dane to Fen. So, he/I will be making the effort to lampshade the hell out of how ridiculous some of this stuff is, while pointing out just how amazing it is at the same time. Expect a more complimentary explanation of the insanity of Fenspace by him/me later.
Anyway, the next segment is supposed to be about the physical layout of the city. I'm going be taking a lot of info from the Legacy Project thread and the wiki, but a couple of quick questions: Someone said there wasn't a tether anchoring the city to the surface, but the wiki says there is. If the tether is there, are there any facilities at the base of it?
And does anyone have any idea how much the terraforming project is tied into the cities? I realize most of it's probably automated, but I don't know how many people are tied into it. For that matter, how is the terraforming being done? I can see on the wiki that the Crystal cities are organized into clusters, but how close are they together?
Also, where does the food come from? Is it all imported, or is one of the Crystal cities a farm too?
And before I forget, it's an open project. If anyone wants submit stuff about Crystal Tokyo or write articles about it, that'd be cool.
For Sherry and Mei, who I should have come up to the stars for a lot sooner.
___________
Fen.
This is the name given to those who have left the planet using the power of handwavium. Over the years, tens of thousands of people from all around the world have come up to what used to be called outer space and made it their home. Each one taking a little bit of their own culture with them, along with their hopes and dreams. But you don't hear about groups of eurpeans putting together a martial arts style for cyborgs. You don't hear about a bunch of american girls making a fantasy kingdom on the moon. You DO hear about how the Fen fought a war in space, colonized a planet outside the solar system, and are terraforming Venus.
As an American I couldn't help but draw certain nostalgic paralells, even though like a great many people on the ground I thought most Fen were a little nuts.
Then I came up and realized two things.
The first, is that while on Earth you tend to hear about the Fen as a whole, they're actually splintered into dozens and dozens of factions. And each one has it's own quirks, values, and ideas about how the universe should work. People still hold onto parts of their earth heritage, but they also tend to gain a whole new nationality in Fenspace that has nothing to with where they were born.
The second thing, is that the Fen aren't a little nuts. They are, and I say this in the most respectful way possible, completely insane.
These are the people that left the planet on flying vehicles made with a dangerous substance that, to this day, no one has any idea whatsoever on how it functions, where it came from and is considered fairly unpredictable at best. They then decided to build space-craft, cities and entire societies based on comic books, scifi novels, and TV shows. In some cases, they even change their own bodies to better fit with their ideals on how things should be.
And, against all odds, they make this work for them. Fenspace is a melting pot of cultures and rivalries that manages to flourish in the unforgiving expanse of space.
It's no utopia, of course. The Boskone War wreaked havoc across the solar system, destroying entire cities and hundreds of lives. Crime still exists, and accidents still happen.
But the Fen continue to build the society of their dreams. In orbit around Earth, a hotel mogul plans yet another expansion to his business empire, while on Mars a cyborg teaches those still new to their wings how to fly. It's easy to get caught up in the impossible things that happen everyday.
This book is meant to be a more in depth guide to the city of Crystal Tokyo in Fenspace. Partly because covering all of Fenspace in one book would be problematic at best, and partly because while you can find lots of facts and figures about various factions and cities, presuming you know where to look, you don't hear a lot about their day to day life. I chose Crystal Tokyo as the starting point for this little venture, partialy because I happen to live there and partialy because it's the headquarters of the Crystal Millenium, one of the six major factions of Fenspace.
Whether you've never been up to Fenspace, or were one of the first ones up here, I hope you enjoy this book and find it informative.
A/N: Thus, I begin yet another project when I really should be working on something else.
The Cultural Guide is basically meant as a more interesting way of fleshing out the various factions and locations of Fenspace. It's going to be a composition of interviews, city walkthroughs, little anecdotes, commentary, and whatever the hell else I can think of to make things more lifelike.
The lens I'm doing this all through is Benjamin Ganders, from Legacy Project. Who's writing this as a book for Fen and Dane alike, from the perspective of a guy who's making the transition from Dane to Fen. So, he/I will be making the effort to lampshade the hell out of how ridiculous some of this stuff is, while pointing out just how amazing it is at the same time. Expect a more complimentary explanation of the insanity of Fenspace by him/me later.
Anyway, the next segment is supposed to be about the physical layout of the city. I'm going be taking a lot of info from the Legacy Project thread and the wiki, but a couple of quick questions: Someone said there wasn't a tether anchoring the city to the surface, but the wiki says there is. If the tether is there, are there any facilities at the base of it?
And does anyone have any idea how much the terraforming project is tied into the cities? I realize most of it's probably automated, but I don't know how many people are tied into it. For that matter, how is the terraforming being done? I can see on the wiki that the Crystal cities are organized into clusters, but how close are they together?
Also, where does the food come from? Is it all imported, or is one of the Crystal cities a farm too?
And before I forget, it's an open project. If anyone wants submit stuff about Crystal Tokyo or write articles about it, that'd be cool.