As was brought up, there's a lot of fics set within the solar system, but despite the fluff claiming the fen are moving out, there's relatively little fiction on actually seeing this move out. So, I figured an actual discussion on why that might be and what might be done to make the setting more friendly to that/make people want to set fics out there.
For my own two (three) cents, I can see three major issues that are currently in the way:
One: Other than Mal, and (sort of) Dartz, everyone has stories that involve more small-scale issues close to home, or that would otherwise have no reason to go out. Jake has his characters dealing with a set of kids who are going through a second life after being horribly murdered and left to rot as undead animatronics; my story is going to deal with a character going through the hero's journey a second time and coming to the apex again trying to deal with solving the societal imbalances that are driving him through creating a new nation of ponies, blackjack, and harmony; the catgirls are doing sciency-stuff, but are more interested in their industry and trying to provide for their kind; so on and so forth. Nobody has a character arc that I know of that could be resolved by going Out, and there seems to be a distressing lack of new writers who might have such an arc planned.
Two: The sheer, cruel logistical equations. It's two days one way to Alpha Centauri. Out there, there's no hope of rescue, no hope of help should there be an issue. It became possible to have stories Up because it was easy to get up and space travel became possible for the layman. They could just wave their car and drive Up. But, basically it becomes impossible to really have any major story set beyond Jupiter orbit because of the distances involved. You're looking at really long distances that make it difficult at best for somebody to just go out and explore. It's a more hazardous proposition than trying to sail solo across the atlantic on a makeshift raft once you go far enough out in a car or other small-craft. And, to actually go to another star requires stupidly serious hardware. It restricts the pool of potential canidates because you need a character more and more connected to go further Out. Even Alpha Centauri is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the fen due to the involved distances and the fluff speeds and capabilities of fencraft, requiring a fairly major vessel in order to safely arrive there. And that's just the closest star. If you want to go further, you need a bigger and bigger vessel in order to safely make the trip, further increasing the backing required. Even to Delta Pavonis (I think, I can't look it up with the wiki still being derp. I really hope we had all that backed up somewhere)--the gate system--is a week long one-way trip. I think. How many ships are there in fenspace that could manage even that trip, let alone the return journey? It makes it pretty hard to tell stories out on the frontier.
Three: The fact is, the fen as currently depicted are a bunch of mad mexican jumping beans in a dump-truck full of empty beer cans. If the often-repeated demographic of 10 million people up is true, well... there's just not enough people to really force pressure to go Out. There's too many stories to tell in the solar system alone, and even then the Fen basically could multiply by a hundred-fold and not experience the normal pressures that would make them want to colonize outwards. There's no need for resources, not really any need for space with all the kupiter belt objects left unclaimed that could be turned into home bases, let alone Mars, Luna, or the Jupiter/Saturn systems. Uranus and Neptune are completely untouched, even. The Fen make a lot of noise, but they're basically outnumbered by most nations, and even a good chunk of the states of the USA. And with the fluff having the danes being just uninterested in going Up for the most part even after a decade of Up existing and turning mundane, as said--there's not really the backing available or the real want to go out due to the sheer inconvience it poses to the masses. The feds and soviets would want to go out and look, but most other factions are too busy still trying to get their houses in order to really bother.
But that's just my opinion. Anyone else have any thoughts on the matters?
For my own two (three) cents, I can see three major issues that are currently in the way:
One: Other than Mal, and (sort of) Dartz, everyone has stories that involve more small-scale issues close to home, or that would otherwise have no reason to go out. Jake has his characters dealing with a set of kids who are going through a second life after being horribly murdered and left to rot as undead animatronics; my story is going to deal with a character going through the hero's journey a second time and coming to the apex again trying to deal with solving the societal imbalances that are driving him through creating a new nation of ponies, blackjack, and harmony; the catgirls are doing sciency-stuff, but are more interested in their industry and trying to provide for their kind; so on and so forth. Nobody has a character arc that I know of that could be resolved by going Out, and there seems to be a distressing lack of new writers who might have such an arc planned.
Two: The sheer, cruel logistical equations. It's two days one way to Alpha Centauri. Out there, there's no hope of rescue, no hope of help should there be an issue. It became possible to have stories Up because it was easy to get up and space travel became possible for the layman. They could just wave their car and drive Up. But, basically it becomes impossible to really have any major story set beyond Jupiter orbit because of the distances involved. You're looking at really long distances that make it difficult at best for somebody to just go out and explore. It's a more hazardous proposition than trying to sail solo across the atlantic on a makeshift raft once you go far enough out in a car or other small-craft. And, to actually go to another star requires stupidly serious hardware. It restricts the pool of potential canidates because you need a character more and more connected to go further Out. Even Alpha Centauri is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the fen due to the involved distances and the fluff speeds and capabilities of fencraft, requiring a fairly major vessel in order to safely arrive there. And that's just the closest star. If you want to go further, you need a bigger and bigger vessel in order to safely make the trip, further increasing the backing required. Even to Delta Pavonis (I think, I can't look it up with the wiki still being derp. I really hope we had all that backed up somewhere)--the gate system--is a week long one-way trip. I think. How many ships are there in fenspace that could manage even that trip, let alone the return journey? It makes it pretty hard to tell stories out on the frontier.
Three: The fact is, the fen as currently depicted are a bunch of mad mexican jumping beans in a dump-truck full of empty beer cans. If the often-repeated demographic of 10 million people up is true, well... there's just not enough people to really force pressure to go Out. There's too many stories to tell in the solar system alone, and even then the Fen basically could multiply by a hundred-fold and not experience the normal pressures that would make them want to colonize outwards. There's no need for resources, not really any need for space with all the kupiter belt objects left unclaimed that could be turned into home bases, let alone Mars, Luna, or the Jupiter/Saturn systems. Uranus and Neptune are completely untouched, even. The Fen make a lot of noise, but they're basically outnumbered by most nations, and even a good chunk of the states of the USA. And with the fluff having the danes being just uninterested in going Up for the most part even after a decade of Up existing and turning mundane, as said--there's not really the backing available or the real want to go out due to the sheer inconvience it poses to the masses. The feds and soviets would want to go out and look, but most other factions are too busy still trying to get their houses in order to really bother.
But that's just my opinion. Anyone else have any thoughts on the matters?