WBJ blog

for Worldbuilding June! project is Depth.

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Day 8 - Hierarchy, Power, & Governance [WBJ]

Governance of settlements is a question of survival and cooperation more than power. Each settlement and vessel is taxed with a set of goals for the continued survival of the species, ranging from creating medicine to upkeep of the seed strongholds. While attempts are made to keep the communities as self-sustaining as possible, trade is relatively free to keep quality of life high.

Leaders are not unable to be overtaken if the people view their actions as too deplorable to come back from. A prominent example would be the poisoning of Thomas Cuff, a Denali leader who became known for exiling wayward residents of the camp. Multiple councils were held, with Cuff refusing to take back his stance on exile; while new leaders were elected, Cuff continued to attempt to hold onto his perception of power. He was found dead one day in his cabin, having been poisoned by an unknown member of the camp. Most leaders tend to be phased out in less violent ways.

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Day 7 - Economy [WBJ]

The economy is largely based on bartering, with individuals able to exchange excesses of the things they produce for other products. Within settlements, the distribution of goods is decided first based on the well-being of those within the settlement walls; any extras are divided among those who helped in its production, and are their personal property from there on out.

Many people involved in food production preserve their extra food for market days, when multiple vessels visit their ports bringing products from various other places around the world. Settlement leaders also have a certain amount of goods that they can keep for pre-determined trades--for example, some citrus may be taken from a harvest and traded for bamboo on a market day.

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Day 6 - Gender and Sexuality [WBJ]

Knowledge about genders and sexualities is relatively widespread in the world of Depth. The effective literacy rate is very high across major settlements, and many of the texts that survived the flooding were copied and translated for the purposes of preservation; most places in the world have an emphasis on keeping historical and cultural artifacts in a state that they can be studied. Because of this, most people have a good understanding of gender and sexuality and the different ways it can be expressed across the world.

Bigotry against certain genders/sexualities tends to be more individual than instutitional (since by and large Depth’s communities are less centralized than the ones in our world). However, more insulated/isolated communities can develop and foster a culture of bigotry. The people most prone to doing this are the long-lasting boat communities, since they have a more clearly defined hierarchy and do not spend much time in contact with the other communities. As such, boats tend to be more strictly heteronormative, transphobic, and patriarchal than the settlements, something that many people take active issue with.

I would get further into this, but because Depth itself is set on a boat and is slated to deal with a lot of these issues, I’d rather not write about them in the general sense; that’s going to do more with development than anything.

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Day 5 - Civilization and Architecture [WBJ]

Settlements in Depth don’t have much of a formalized structure, instead adapting to the needs of the people within them. Whereas Achik Paqar has two elected leaders trusted to make the decisions for the camp (Chaska Banda and David Mamani), Tanggulashan makes most of its decisions with the help of a rotating tribunal designed to maximize input from the entire settlement.

It is mostly agreed upon that the inhabitants of the world are entitled to food, water, and shelter, but also understood that the existence of those things would be impossible without any effort on their part. Some settlements, particularly smaller ones such as Leadville, require adult members to meet a labor quota; most operate on a volunteer basis with additional incentives for those who opt into work of some kind. Trade is also relatively free between settlements, and ports can become frantic with visiting vessels; vessels that dock briefly or rarely, like the MS Delos, are usually held to less strict standards of trade and are invited to rest and eat.

Architecture is an important part of society, since good infrastructure is vital to the continued survival of everybody within their own camps. Coated wood is a highly coveted substance since it can be used to construct supports for piers; it is also used by some to make an elevated platform upon which people can live. This more unorthodox approach, building a place to live rather than taking advantage of the natural landscape, was nonetheless gaining traction. It slowed down considerably once the news of a receding sea level came out, but existing platforms are still rather popular for those who want to live far away from the hustle and bustle of the larger settlements.

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Day 4 - History [WBJ]

Depth’s history is speculative futuristic fiction; sometime in our near future, a major cataclysm takes place and causes the planet’s sea levels to rise dramatically. The world’s most inhabitable places are now restricted to areas more than 3,000m above our current sea level (while other elevations are not necessarily underwater, they are very prone to flooding and either aren’t safe or can only be inhabited for part of the year). The years since the flooding event have also seen much more extreme weather than previously.

Many settlements that were started in the early days of the flooding failed or were forced to move elsewhere; the most notable example is the fated Black Earth, a 200,000-strong camp in Iceland that was decimated by rapid flooding. While not even close to the most fatal flooding event, Black Earth had a group of survivors that wrote a well-publicized account of the last hours of the camp’s existence. In the first few years, over 90% of the world’s population perished from a combination of illness, starvation, and drowning (some of which occurred because of the false belief that their homes would not flood).

The settlements that best survived the events were the ones that took the weather warnings at their most extreme--relocating to elevated, remote areas and creating livable spaces around mountains. One of the most populated settlements is Tanggulashan in China; pre-flooding it had a population of around 2,000, which ballooned to 500,000 during incorporation and has been steadily gaining since. It now has a population of 800,000. Other successful settlements include Achik Paqar, Laya, Sagarmatha, Karzok, and Chatyndy.

In Depth’s current time, the focus has shifted from simple survival to trying to improve the lives of its inhabitants. People study and develop methods of living on a volunteer basis, ranging from the research personnel on vessels like the RV Enoch to permanent dwellers that develop the most efficient ways to farm. In recent years (relative to Depth’s timeline), the sea levels have been noted to be receding at a relatively quick rate; other weather markers indicate to the inhabitants that they need to start thinking about how to rebuild and repopulate the world once more of the land becomes livable again.

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Day 3 - People & Races [WBJ]

Late late late, oops. I had a lot of difficulty wrapping my head around this prompt because I didn’t know how to word it, but:

The living population in Depth has the potential to be any currently existing racial or ethnic group, because I don’t believe it’s necessary for me to declare an entire ethnic group washed out (kind of silly to presume that even in an apocalyptic setting, too). 

The greatest concentration would be any group from South America (particularly from Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Ecuador), East Asia (from China and Mongolia), South Asia (from Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, and India), Central Asia (Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan), and North America (Alaska and Colorado). Refugee and evacuation efforts once rapid flooding began, however, means that there is potentially any combination of people in any given area.

I’ll discuss languages and the like later since I could infodump on languages for hours.

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Day 2 - Geography [WBJ]

I’m a dumb and I didn’t make any maps, but most of the world in Depth is actually the ocean and the rest are somewhat familiar landmarks. Hooray for lazy geography! These lists aren’t extensive, but detail some of the locations that are actually inhabited and important. Most of the areas in Depth considered safe enough to inhabit are in Eurasia and South America.

I also ran into some...things while working on this, so it’s going to be shorter than I’d like. Oh well. I’ll try to edit this at a later date to include more information about the other areas.

Achik Paqar (La Rinconada and surrounding areas in Peru) - Before the flood, Achik Paqar was a moderately-sized mining town in Ananea; once the coasts began to be swallowed up by water, it became a popular destination for refugees. Most of Ananea and its mountains was converted into a large base camp with La Rinconada as its center. Achik Paqar is notable for being the main place of trade for both North and South America.

Tanggulashan (Tanggula Town in China) - Tanggulashan saw one of the most dramatic population booms post-flood, going from an estimated 2,000 people to a population of 800,000. It is one of two places in East Asia that is inhabited year-round; the other is Tsengel-Ulaankhus. Tanggulashan has the largest population of sheep in the world and is the largest provider of wool.

Sagarmatha (Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal) - Sagarmatha is the area around Mount Everest and is home to a variety of flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world. The abundant presence of bamboo in Sagarmatha makes it vital, since bamboo is used in construction in many areas of the world; to a lesser extent, Sagarmatha is a destination for its many birds and juniper.

Other areas of importance:

Denali

Leadville

Hikkim

Chatyndy

Parinacota

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Day 1 - Introdution [WBJ]

Hi hi. I’m using Worldbuilding June as an opportunity to expand on the world of a story I’m working on (tentatively called Depth for now, though this is mostly so I can have a title for my documents as I work on it).

Depth takes place in a world that was dramatically altered by a series of ecological disasters, resulting in most of the earth’s land being swallowed by the oceans. Many humans cluster in settlements on what remains of the land, though a great many more spend most of their lives in boats. There are two ships that will be focused on in the story: the passenger vessel Delos and its sister research vessel Enoch.

In recent years, the sea levels have been noted to be receding, and the humans in the story are attempting to prepare for a return to life on land and reintroduce many of the plants that grew there before. I’m not going to go into detail about much else until later in the month (need to save something for those prompts, oops), but the world takes a lot of influence from solarpunk and post-apocalyptic fiction. I’m very interested in how solarpunk would work out if a lot of human infrastructure collapsed and the focus was on rebuilding rather than refining, so that’s what I’m hoping to explore a bit! <3

The story is not essentially a magical one--its focus is on nature and how humans interact with it, as well as how nature affects human relationships in a post-collapse world. Because of that, I intend to use the magic prompt to talk about belief in magic instead. However, the cause for the drastic rise in sea level is meant to be supernatural. I just doubt that I’ll go into it.