History Dilation

“There are centuries in which nothing happens

and years in which centuries pass.”

- Sefarand, 1492 by Homero Aridjis

That quote, sums up the issue I have with many worlds. A worldbuilder will pick a date or a time span say the year 439 and fill it full of important events. Maybe this will get expanded to a singular character who is the ‘Worldbuliding agent’ or ‘main character’ depending on the terminology being used. These become the characters in the stories that build out the history. If you read The Shoulders of Giants back at the end of February, this may sound familiar if not you should check it out. Regardless this causes a problem where history gets compressed.

This isn’t to say there aren’t times where centuries happen in years and then times where centuries go by unremembered. For example we look to history there was about 30 years of centuries happening, between 1914 to 1945. Then there was a breather period until about 1960. It isn’t that nothing happened, the founding of the UN, collapse of the British Empire, and a handful of communist uprisings including the start of the Vietnam War in ‘55. I’m sure someone is about to comment “What about the Korean War!” I didn’t forget about it, but as a society, it’s often overlooked for the problems in Vietnam since it had the larger impact on society and the prologue to all that starts two years after we finish sweeping Mig Alley. Meaning that this ‘forgotten period’ is over shadowed by the titans on either side of it.

Thus to emulate this the worldbuilder should put a pile of events in one block of time and then for the next block of time that is somewhere between half to double the length, or there about, put a few key events that change the stage for the next pile. If one has a globe I’d instead treat it as a shifting of focus. If we start in 1915 and are using a 30/15 cycle and have two regions we are building in we will say, Europe and Asia, look how the history would work. We start with Europe ‘in focus’ and Asia ‘on intermission’. Asia starts in 1930, joining the main stage. Thus Europe and Asia are in focus. 1945 Europe goes onto intermission leaving only Asia in focus for 15 years. When 1960 rolls around Europe comes back onto the stage Asia leaves. So on and so forth.

While this is a bit over simplified when we look at our history, it isn’t a bad fit. WWI was a majority European conflict. Japan did participate taking some islands from Germany in the Pacific, and the Australians invaded the Ottoman Empire, other than that relatively quiet. In 1930 Japan starts it’s imperial ambitions and China has issues, meanwhile Europe is falling back into war, which kicks off in 39. WWII officially kicks off with the US joining in in ‘42. World War II ends in ‘45 and Europe goes off to rebuild, meanwhile Asia is getting decolonized and there are a handful of civil wars. 1960 the Cold War in Europe is now heating up. I know I’m oversimplifying things, yet when worldbuilding there has to be some degree of simplification.

This leads to the question: What makes up these two phases? Active phases should have conflict, change, and collapse. The active phases are what molds society, things will not look the same at the end of period they did at the start of the period. Which is the point of building an active phase. The Intermission is when things calm down and collect. Lessons are learned, and written down. There may be some things that need wrapping up, yet they are of secondary importance, the important part is getting ready for the next active period. Which is why I call it the Intermission. Generally the intermission lasts less time than the active period. At least until we start forgetting things.

As time moves on the cycle gets extended A 30/15 may turn into a 50/25, or even a 200/100 as time moves forward. This can be mitigated a bit by the technology of the world. A more advanced technology will have better record keeping. However a society can only have so much living memory. Yes species like Elves, and Dwarves can have long memories and longer lives; and race of AI could have an infinite lifespan and a prefect memory. Yet there’s only so much that can be useful at a time. This expansion can happen to highlight the more important parts of the history, or it could happen because history is being forgotten, or buried. See my comment about the Korean War from earlier. Given another fifty or hundred years it is quite possible the Korean War gets dropped entirely from the cultural memory, as it has been pushed out by the more important events. Given another two hundred it’s possible the entire fifteen year intermission gets glossed over entirely when talking about the 20th century in the 23rd.

Which leads me to my final point, it’s never a hard cycle. Thus far I’ve been using a 30/15 as the active, intermission cycle. Yet it isn’t that clean. I’d argue that the US had a 30/25 after the Soviet Union fell, with the US starting the active part of the cycle in 2015, rather than the 2005 that would be implied by the pattern. We won’t be able to really know where on the timeline to draw the change over until 2040; if not 2050.

There is a bit of a difference if an active period is extended or if an intermission is extended. When the active period is extended it usually is due to either an outside force starting the active period early, or coming in at the end of an active period and delaying the intermission. For example if a foreign power invades and kicks off the active period early, then after the war a series of internal conflicts last until the ‘scheduled’ end of the period. The inverse could also be true, the active period starts off with great reforms or revolution and is extended because the neighbor decides that they could do a better job ruling over those troubled lands. Longer intermissions would depend on how impactful was the active period. If the active period resulted in major changes seen for the better, there may be a longer time before things get ripe for change again. On the other hand if the changes were so ruinous it might not be possible for things to change for a while as the people may not have the means or numbers to do so for a generation or two.

When it comes to telling stories, it’s hard for any one person to determine if they are in an active period or an intermission period. As far as they would know everything is active. Things are happening, the world is changing and life doesn’t stop. If the characters are going to have a global impact I would recommend putting them either at the start or end of an active period. For example the start of US involvement in the Vietnam War in ‘63 or the fall of the Soviet Union in ‘89.

If it’s the start of an active period put your character in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2nd 1964, or Sarajevo June 28th 1914. Both are near the start of an active period, and depending on how they interact they could come out as a hero, villain, or simply a witness to these events. Each of those options have their stories, and chances to get into the driver or navigator’s seat of history. On the end side someone has to take charge of the reflection, deciding what lessons are learned can be powerful. It will change the tone of the intermission and thus the framing of the next active period. Think of it as setting up the dominos for the next run, he who sets the most dominos will have more control over how they fall.

With that all said, this system is better for when one is looking to set up a timeline, and populate it in the long run. A short history might not have had the time to establish these kinds of patterns. Yet over a long enough time frame they will end up appearing. Give it a try, let me know if it helps, and keep an eye on this space. I’ve been mulling over a project or two and should be ready to post the first part of it shortly.