Mechanics
It is no secret that I am a huge fan of mechanical things, and I intend to represent them frequently and in detail with my writing. I am also a fan of the dramatic and the exaggerated, as you can see by the page describing humans being little more than a justification for characters to be capable of unrealistic feats. With living things like people, though, I care a lot less about details because firstly, I don’t know or care to know as much about that, and secondly, “the indomitable human spirit” is fun and nice.
Unfortunately for everyone, I am a huge nerd who cares about ultra-fine details when it comes to mechanical things, and because of that you are now forced to read this page. My apologies.
Exaggeration in general¶
Exaggeration of the capability of things is fine, and it’s fun, so I’m not going to stop it. The creation of things that aren’t practical or feasible in reality is also fun, so go right ahead. However, I would prefer to keep such exaggeration to a minimum in most cases so that it can be that much more impactful when it comes in at full effect. For instance, having one, two, or even a small handful of big mech suits is awesome, but having them everywhere is less awesome. Sentient AI is also a deeply interesting topic, but most of the intrigue and mystique of it is lost if there are more than a few of them. Essentially my target is a relatively normal world with - aside from the mystical - a little extra here and there.
Of course, this doesn’t apply absolutely. The EVA Driver for instance is completely impossible in the real world and doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it exists in huge quantities anyway. What separates something like the EVA driver from the other examples is that it’s merely a utility. Instead of taking the focus away from anything else in the world, it’s just there in the background, silently doing its job. Of course, there is also SensNet which is far more ridiculous and fundamentally changes the way of life for most of the world. This is the full effect I’m talking about, completely changing the world in its most recent few years in a way that nothing else could.
Just use your best discretion when you want to exaggerate something, invent something, go full sci-fi or even full fantasy. Unless it’s one of the specific cases below, that is.
Specific guidelines¶
Aside from artistic media, my favorite things in the world are cars, then airplanes, then swords, so of course I’m going to nerd out about those things. Computers too, I guess, though my relationship with them is, shall we say, a bit rocky. Aside from those, there are also guns, which I know too much about despite lacking the passion for them, and urban infrastructure, which I have a budding passion for despite lacking the knowledge.
While I already said that my target for the world is essentially something normal with a little extra here and there, there will be some major exceptions to that below. I’m open to discussion and suggestions from the realistic perspective on these things and more, so if you have something in mind to improve what’s here or add more to this page, by all means, get involved, but I am significantly less open to suggestions from the exaggerated or unrealistic perspectives on anything already present on this page. Discuss away anyway, changes aren’t impossible, just less likely.
Cars¶
You simply do not make the cars unrealistic. Plain and simple. Cars are too cool as they already exist in reality to want to exaggerate them. Even electric cars to some extent. If you want to make a crazy car that isn’t real, you better know enough about real cars to be able to explain to me how it could work in the real world.
However, there is one point to exaggerate, and that is the fuel source. We all know how horrible cars are for the environment, which is why electric cars are set to take over the industry, for their lack of emissions. Assuming that electricity can come from clean renewable sources, that’s a huge net positive, so it’s only natural to aim for that in the future. They aren’t practical for all use cases though, and aren’t even usable in some parts of the world, plus the problems with battery manufacturing can make them difficult, so alternative fuels like ethanol, biofuels, and LPG will proliferate this world much more prominently than they have in reality, even though they don’t really solve the combustion problem.
An ideal middle ground could be the hydrogen fuel cell, so in this world, I would like those to be far more common than they are in reality. If not from the factory, then aftermarket conversion kits should be common. They will hit the market in the year 2000 in this world, and infrastructure to support them will spread quickly throughout most of the world. Hybrid electric vehicles will still exist as a common sight, but hydrogen fuel cell vehicles should eclipse them and eventually become the most common type of vehicle on the road before the switch to full electric.
Gasoline, LPG, diesel, biofuel, and ethanol combustion will be banned in all countries but Destrea by the year 2025, and as early as 2010 in some parts of the world.
Unfortunately, I think combustion engines are too cool to abandon, so I want to extend their lives. In real life, regular internal combustion engines can be made to run on hydrogen, making them so much cleaner it can be considered virtually zero impact, assuming the hydrogen is produced cleanly with renewable energy and a catalytic converter is still used. It’s also a tremendously inefficient fuel for a car, requiring a gigantic, heavy tank to contain the hydrogen, not even managing 50% efficiency in the end, and slowly disappearing from the tank constantly even while parked.
But I don’t care. We’re doing it anyway. In this world, the early proliferation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and clean energy has made hydrogen plentiful and cheap, so it follows suit for hydrogen combustion to be not only attainable, but popular among enthusiasts, with some even going so far as to generate their own hydrogen. As for how it’s stored, it can be done realistically in sports cars since enthusiasts who would buy a car like that from the factory probably don’t care about cargo space anyway, but I also don’t mind bending the rules and inventing something impractical or impossible to make hydrogen combustion even more appealing in this world, like smaller tanks that can safely contain hydrogen at significantly higher pressures than what is realistic, or simply holding liquid hydrogen in the same form factor as a regular gasoline tank. This, too, should be available as an aftermarket conversion for any combustion vehicle as early as the year 2000.
With fuel covered, another subject is that of autonomous operation. Plain and simple, it exists at its fullest potential as early as 2020, and some parts of the world will ban human operated cars entirely by 2030.
The final topic is simply removing cars entirely. Public transit is infinitely better than personal transportation for cities, the environment, and the people, so public transit is going to have a strong presence everywhere in this world. The car-free city will also have a strong presence in this world, with some cities banning cars inside the city entirely as early as 1960, followed by more and more places slowly banning them as time goes on, up until 2025 when the bans will increase dramatically.
In summary: Cars are cool, but keep them as realistic as possible, the only rule we’re bending is the practicality of using hydrogen as fuel, and other things like alternative fuels and autonomy and public transit are simply realistic concepts taken farther.
Aircraft¶
I like Ace Combat. That should say it all.
I am very okay with being unrealistic when it comes to the capability, technology, and prominence of military aircraft. This is why I specifically wrote that humans in this world have a higher G tolerance than in reality, and made the air forces of the world more important than the navies. This is pure fantasy, it can be silly, it makes me happy.
Unfortunately, I still think real planes with real limitations are cool too, so while I’m okay with the idea of jets pulling 20 G turns and taking way more fire than they should really be able to, I think their weaponry should stay relatively realistic (so no 120 missile loadouts or infinite ammo cannons) and aerodynamics should still be considered to a degree. So if you wanted to design an airplane, the airframe needs to be (at least theoretically) aerodynamically possible in reality. Pushing the boundaries of realism when it comes to the engine is fine, so if you had a design in mind that could fly in reality if it only had a more powerful engine than reality can offer, go ahead and fudge the numbers or make something up.
Where we can really break the rules is in the electronic department. Pilot assists, extremely advanced target tracking, fully enclosed cockpits delivering 360 degree vision through the use of cameras, whatever you can come up with as long as it’s cool and has at least enough detail to be believable in this world. Oddball concepts like pusher propellers, prone piloting position, forward swept wings, tailless aircraft, and all that fun stuff is also very much on the table to play with.
One area that I would like to exaggerate is the safety of the pilot. I would like cockpits to have much better armor, much sooner, and for ejector seats to proliferate much earlier. The romanticized concept of the honorable dogfighter is one of my very favorites, so for pilots to have a higher survival rate, it just feels right.
Of course, what I just said also should imply that I want the dogfight to stick around throughout history. Air conflicts in this world are much more common than in reality, and fighters are extremely plentiful and cheap, so I imagine the militaries of this world simply continued developing technologies and strategies to be better in close quarters air-to-air combat because there was never a sufficient reason to change it. Other tactics still exist, of course, they’re just less common. I imagine that because of this (at least in part) propeller aircraft also stuck around and continued to be developed for longer than they did in reality, delaying the advent of the jet age by at least a decade, which also helps justify the continued use of older jets even in the current year of 2033.
Now, in the case of non-military aircraft, this is a great opportunity to explore unusual, impractical, or futuristic concepts. Flying wing commercial airliners? Extreme proliferation of advanced and experimental personal aircraft? Hydrogen aircraft? Personal single-seat jets? Zeppelins? Communities built entirely around aviation? Biplanes in the 21st century? Go for it, let nothing stop you except for basic aerodynamics.
In summary: Aviation in this world is for fantasizing about what could be, or what could have been, and to romanticize flight and air-to-air combat, with only just enough realism to still be able to nerd out about airplanes and how flight works.
Computers and AI¶
Plain and simple, keep it realistic. The only time I ever want to see computers in this world escape the realms of reality are in the cases of obvious sci-fi, like the EVA drivers, SensNet, and sentient AI. I don’t expect anyone to explain in realistic detail how things like that work, because it’s not necessary, because sci-fi technology like that is speculative in nature and meant to explore the potential effects and results of such technology, regardless of reality. But if you have a regular computer, you do not get to treat it like anything other than a regular computer.
If you have an idea for some kind of software that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with computers, however, continue with discretion. For instance, we have fast and accurate facial recognition in reality today, and if you wanted to have better facial recognition in this world at the equivalent point in history, I won’t complain, but I would have questions if you wanted that 20 years earlier. Autonomous cars, aircraft pilot assists and targeting systems, space stuff, smart devices, all of these things and more are canonically far ahead of what we have in reality, but the key is that they are still theoretically possible, be it with the development better tech or simply with more money.
And for the love of all that is holy, don’t even think about hacking unless you can explain exactly what it is and how it works. Hacking is boring, and it should stay boring.
In summary: No BS unless it’s theoretically possible or speculative sci-fi, because computers aren’t cool, and the speculation is about anything but the computers themselves.
Guns¶
While I would prefer the guns in this world remain realistic for the most part, I also think some liberties could be interesting. For instance, modifying guns to accept different ammunition is a neat idea that I think should be much more feasible in this world, even when it’s silly in reality, like converting a rifle from the 1800s to 7.62x51mm NATO. I’m no gun nut so I will personally make no attempt to get into all the nerdy details about how something like that could be done, but if a gun nut says an idea is completely and absolutely impossible no matter how you look at it, then don’t do it, but otherwise, screw reality, do what you want if it’s cool and at least somewhat believable.
And speaking of cool: Accuracy. Guns are more accurate in this world than in reality, and the same is true of any trained shooter in this world. Long shots with pistols are possible because they’re cool, extremely long distance sniping with rifles happens more often because it’s cool, and people are better at controlling automatic weapons. Bend reality as far as it will go, I don’t care, the rule of cool is in charge of the guns here.
I only really care about realism in the presentation of the guns themselves, because the machinery and engineering that makes a gun operate are also really cool things, so while I don’t care if you do silly stuff with conversions, modifications, or accuracy of fire, I do still expect you to be able to explain how the gun operates in a realistic way if that’s going to get any kind of focus, especially if you were to come up with your own design. If you’re not that kind of nerd, don’t worry about it, just stay open to feedback on the matter.
In summary: Guns need to be realistic enough that they could theoretically function in real life, but how you use them is down to the rule of cool.
Swords¶
Plain and simple, keep it realistic. Eliminate all video game logic from your brain, sit down, and study how swords are made and what they’re capable of.
They are not heavy, nor slow, even when very large. Blades are thin, not thick, and they are flexible, sometimes extremely. Two hands are better than one. A shield is almost always better than a bigger sword. Gargantuan two ton swords are cool in Berserk and Dark Souls, but this isn’t that. The katana is not special. Spears beat swords basically every time. Swords cannot cut the head off a spear, or cut through a shield, or cut through armor, or shatter other swords.
When it comes to the durability and potential sharpness of swords in this world, however, they are simply superior to equivalent swords in real life due to the extreme availability of high quality materials in this world. Because of that, better materials and methods of swordsmithing came much faster to this world, and persisted for longer since by the time the musket was invented, armor was so much better in this world than it was in reality that the development of guns was stunted for a long time. Swords in particular have even persisted into modern times, particularly among defense-minded civilians due to the NPCF Treaty.
With all of that in mind, there is still one way to exaggerate a sword (or any other weapon of the era for that matter) into the realm of fantasy. Attunement. A sword user with attunement could cut through anything with their sword by utilizing that ability, and could even make their sword seem indestructible that way. Some sword users may even have this ability without realizing it. Some swords may even carry some ability of their own thanks to souls. Or you could dive all the way into magical territory, like the Inazuma Clan and their hereditary ability to channel lightning through their blades, and cut through things without the blade actually touching them.
In summary: Swords are to be treated entirely realistically, assuming better materials and technology, except and only except when mystic matter is involved.
Urban infrastructure¶
More sustainability. More walkability. Public transit. Higher population density. Less cars. Way less urban sprawl. More renewable energy. Lots more nuclear energy. Way less single family housing. More mixed use zoning, or simply no zoning at all. Generally good stuff. Interesting and unusual concepts like underground cities and tunnel networks or cities built radially around a central tower are also cool and worth exploring.
That’s it. This isn’t really a mechanical thing but it’s here anyway.