All Infopages

[lwise]

There's another glaring problem in the world-building, which is that Danes and Swedes don't believe in magic.  I can see not believing in Finnish magic which involves appealing to deities; that's not something you want to do as a demonstration.  However, Icelandic magic is very much demonstrable.  Reynir, who isn't even especially well trained, was able to deflect the water cows to go around the party.  He based his rune on something they use in Iceland to control sheep.  These are things that can be shown to work under controlled conditions.

Even some Finnish magic is demonstrable.  Whether Vaino sees through the eyes of gulls, or just sees through the thing one gull wears around its neck, he definitely does "see far over the water".  You could easily set up a test to prove that he really sees things over the water even when he is in his house with the doors and windows covered.

The scientifically minded Danes and Swedes should believe in those kinds of magic.  They might doubt the existence of ghosts -- discarnate spirits -- because it would be hard to demonstrate them, but they should believe that some forms of magic definitely exist.

[lwise]

In re scavenging: in the elder days of the comments, there were many, many discussions which pointed out how very, very little would be usable by Y90; I know I looked up how plastic decays as research for fanfics, at the very least.

If a building is in good enough shape to have readable books, wooden furniture in there would be usable too.  Pots and pans and china or stoneware dishes would hold up as well.  Wool lasts a long time if protected from water and vermin.

Also, Torbjorn is making a copy to send to the printers for reprinting, since the originals are too valuable to risk in that endeavor.

Mikkel asked Tuuri to transcribe the medical log for him, probably for exactly that reason.

[tehta]

Regarding the magic thing, I agree! Especially regarding Iceland. I mean, I can convince myself that, while Finnish magic experiments are possible, few scientifically-minded people would be in a position to even get the idea to conduct them. I mean, there isn't much of a reason for such people to visit Finland, is there? But Iceland! Iceland is likely a major center for noon-magic science as well as for magic, and staves are hard to ignore. (But maybe there are plenty of well-educated or well-traveled Swedes and Danes who do accept it? We don't know what e.g. Trond thinks about it, do we? And do we know if Mikkel has ever visited Iceland?)

I really like the idea that the reasons why Denmark was chosen were legal ones. It doesn't even have to be that Denmark declared that it's abandoning the mainland; it's very plausible that Sweden and Norway introduced anti-scavenging laws because of 'accidents' or black-market profiteering. Perhaps Cleansers have strict laws against it, too, and get searched after missions.

[lwise]

Trond's a Norwegian, so presumably he believes in magic.


There might well be anti-scavenging laws because of accidents.  I use that as an explanation for why the Danish soldiers didn't scavenge books when they were over there prior to the Kastrup disaster.

[Jitter]

Back to the Map of the Known World! I loved it from the moment I saw it. I was interested before, but the map really caught my attention. I still remember gushing about it to my family (and their underwhelming response to it). And JoB had an interesting vision of the train design in use on the Sveavägen

Minna’s comments here make sad reading, though. She references her many plans, including a very very long journey off the confines of the Known World. And apparently plans to present a more detailed map of Iceland at some point. If only!

[Jitter]

Oh, I only just noticed the settlement Vädeöarna and the red areas on islands of Læsø and Arnholt between Swedish west coast and Jylland. I wonder which country those belong to? By spelling, Väderöarna is Swedish and Læsø Danish or Norwegian but they are far from any other settlements in any of the countries.

Similarly there is some red in the Åland islands, which nowadays are part of Finland although strictly Swedish-speaking. But those areas are relatively close to Skutskär in Sweden, so it is definitely part of Sweden whether they are descendants of Y0 locals or resettled from Sweden. The islands are very many and there aren’t many cetaceans in the Baltic (there are seals but even those aren’t extremely numerous) so the archipelago would be a good survival area all in all.

There is also discussion about there being red in the Shetland islands, but I’m not sure if that’s actually color or just loss of definition of the graphic. In some comment Minna says any survivors there may have been in the small northern islands that are currently part Scotland have migrated into Scandinavia, so probably it’s just a glitch in the graphic.

[tehta]

Oops, sorry, how could I forget about General Trond (retired)? But I think my other points might stand. (Note, also, that Mikkel's comments on Reynir's rune don't mean he doesn't believe in ANY runes, just ones made up by a shepherd with delusions. Even Tuuri has trouble believing in Reynir's magic.)

[dmeck7755]

I find the apparent lack of scavenging a glaring omission. Minna was at some point (before All That) considering info pages on the economic structure of the Known World, which could have included something about that. For example that scavenging is strictly illegal after too many accidents (hence send a scientific investigation team and not looters). By Y90 they will have had time to have various different situations. But maybe Minna just wanted to be different from many (most?) post-apocalypse stories that tend to be scavenging-heavy.

Could be that scavenging was not relevant to the stories.  Our heroes had to scavenge a few times for various things.

It could also be that the danger from Trolls was really great in the early years, that people felt the need to scavenge not worth the risk. Then it would pass into the realm of legend/folklore to go into the silent lands meant death.  Look how our heroes had to quarantine the extra time.  Plus they were being hounded by reporters when they got back.  So travels to the Silent World must have been nearly non-existent.

( I need to really get off my lazy butt and write more about the Guild...)

[dmeck7755]

If a building is in good enough shape to have readable books, wooden furniture in there would be usable too.  Pots and pans and china or stoneware dishes would hold up as well.  Wool lasts a long time if protected from water and vermin.

I thinks also if things were still palatalized they may be usable.  Or still wrapped in shipping plastic.  Stuff sitting in drawers or lying about in old homes--not so much

[dmeck7755]

Back to the Map of the Known World! I loved it from the moment I saw it. I was interested before, but the map really caught my attention. I still remember gushing about it to my family (and their underwhelming response to it). And JoB had an interesting vision of the train design in use on the Sveavägen

Minna’s comments here make sad reading, though. She references her many plans, including a very very long journey off the confines of the Known World. And apparently plans to present a more detailed map of Iceland at some point. If only!

I use this map a lot.  I loved the maps she drew

[lwise]

Oops, sorry, how could I forget about General Trond (retired)? But I think my other points might stand. (Note, also, that Mikkel's comments on Reynir's rune don't mean he doesn't believe in ANY runes, just ones made up by a shepherd with delusions. Even Tuuri has trouble believing in Reynir's magic.)

Mikkel didn't absolutely rule out magic (see page 616, where Mikkel and Emil talk about magic), but he said he'd "never seen definitive proof" of magic, so maybe he'd never personally been to Iceland.  On the other hand, I've never seen definitive proof of the existence of Antarctica, but I do consider it proven.  I think Swedish and Danish scientists should have proved the existence of Icelandic magic -- and maybe even some Finnish magic -- to his satisfaction.

[thorny]

this whole "the world feels so vibrant, but it really is not fully thought out, is it?" thing

That's really it, I think; not only about the books, or where the expedition goes, but pretty much everything about the worldbuilding. Vibrant; beautifully illustrated; interesting characters -- but the worldbuilding is in general just not thought out at all. Detailed, worked out information's given for isolated bits and pieces; but info given in one section doesn't match what happens in other parts of the story; and coherent background info for how either the human societies, or the ecology, or the Rash itself works is just nonexistent -- and I think not because Minna understood it but didn't get to explaining it before changing her belief system, but, I think, because Minna thinks and thought that it doesn't matter, and therefore either never bothered working it out or deliberately didn't work it out so that a coherent spelled-out framework wouldn't interfere with what she wanted to do with the story at any moment.

[dmeck7755]

In all, this whole "the world feels so vibrant, but it really is not fully thought out, is it?" thing is probably the best sort of state for a franchise to be in to inspire fanfiction.

Most definitely.  I love the Fan Fiction I have read so far. 

[Róisín]

dmeck, I do like that cartoon!

[Jitter]

That's really it, I think; not only about the books, or where the expedition goes, but pretty much everything about the worldbuilding. Vibrant; beautifully illustrated; interesting characters -- but the worldbuilding is in general just not thought out at all. Detailed, worked out information's given for isolated bits and pieces; but info given in one section doesn't match what happens in other parts of the story; and coherent background info for how either the human societies, or the ecology, or the Rash itself works is just nonexistent -- and I think not because Minna understood it but didn't get to explaining it before changing her belief system, but, I think, because Minna thinks and thought that it doesn't matter, and therefore either never bothered working it out or deliberately didn't work it out so that a coherent spelled-out framework wouldn't interfere with what she wanted to do with the story at any moment.

Thorny, I think it was a bit of all of your suggestions. Towards the end of comic she was repeatedly surprised in the streams about questions people had, and mentioned that if she ever was to do a long-form story again, she will have to set up a register for herself to keep tabs of the references, foreshadowings, ideas and world building things. So partially it seems that she just didn't think 100 % coherence is important, or alternatively thought she can keep it all in her mind and only realized after the fact that she couldn't.

A lot of it was about her wanting to leave room to make up things. She did say, she doesn't want to "paint herself into a corner" so either chose not to make references to the future (even where we thought we saw some ) or then just disregarded them when she changed her mind. The great green omen both Reynir and Lalli saw was one such thing she mentioned. She had planned for omens to be an important feature in some story, but she later abandoned it so that one scene became kind of random. Which reminds me that I haven't read anything about it - I suppose everyone was waiting for whatever the omen predicted to happen in canon, and then it didn't, and now it's a bit forgotten. But now it's in the "public fanwork domain"!

Also based on her comments during the prologue and later in the streams, it seems she has done a lot of work for some areas of the world building. We know she has studied historical pandemics a lot, and she spent a lot of time designing the world map and the settlements, and scouted out many areas (she went to live in Mora for this reason!). But then for some others apparently not much planning at all. I was trying to make some questions about the magic systems but it sort of looked like there is no system. So decided against it - I don't want to get some silly answer like happened with the discussion about Emil's mom.

Earlier someone else was asking about governments in the various countries, and she handwaved it saying that the villages are self-governing but there are not central governments. This cannot possibly be the case as the countries have militaries and national scale projects.

The same goes for ecology. The schemers cut food budget stating that the crew will have to hunt. Also in response to a question about what trades are included in the "peasants" category she mentions food hunters. But at least in Silent Denmark healthy animals seem to be very rare and the only references to hunting for food are Emil not shooting a deer, and the one squirrel Lalli drops into the pot. Not only that but they also talk about how sometimes enclaves of healthy animals may be formed in special places (which Mikkel would know how? By having been in the Silent World before?)

So, I have to conclude that she did after all bite off more than she was able to chew. Being one person producing pages at the speed of light didn't leave enough time to work things out as they come along, so some of the pieces are sticking out in weird angles. This is not meant to downplay her achievement at all! This was the style she decided to work in, and it got us a beautiful wealth of stories. Her decision to just wing it with some (many) things about the world was hers to make. Now it's up to us to fill those holes