Hm. I seem to have created a lot of species with nowhere to live. Could they live on Earth? Sure, but where’s the fun in that?
Time for some sci fi world building… literally! Let’s talk about how I create planets.
Rather watch a video?
Check out the YouTube version of this blog post.
Like the worldbuilding government chat, this is a reverse engineering approach, so if you’re following along at home, make sure you have your species outlined first.
Now, what we know about the composition of planets starts with what we know about Earth. So I’m going to look at some of the disciplines of earth science to make sure I give my planet some interesting features.
Let’s start with ecology.
Inhabitants / Ecology of a Sci-Fi Planet
I think about the dominant species on the sci fi planet first when looking at designing a planet. It stands to reason that if the species is dominant, there’s something about their environment that’s working well for them.
Because each unique biology interacts differently with various environments, I want to make sure I pay attention to the specific needs of my species. Most notable are: What do they eat? How do they shelter? What is a suitable temperature and atmosphere? And, depending on the importance of ecological detail to the story, what conditions are required for that food source to remain plentiful?
To ensure that the narrative stays connected to the physical properties of the world, I often work through some backstory when building ecological structures. My sturnovula, for instance, begin the story in their stone age, but they evolve quickly. For their story and the ecology of the planet to work together, I evolved their predators into “enemies” and their prey into “husbandry animals”.
This idea of ecology through time is also important to me when creating the history and future of the planet’s life.
Geology / Geography / Hydrology of a Sci-Fi Planet
How my characters flow with the nonliving world is just as important as how they interact with living beings. Bodies of water and land masses help a species stay dominant in its world.
To put this in less abstract terms, think mountain goat.
For those of you who are not familiar: mountain goats are four-legged hoofed creatures that live in mountainous areas. They are agile and so well balanced that they climb and leap along steep rocky areas, rarely falling. And their environment is one where many of their predators are much more susceptible to fatal falls.
Video by Amir Hossein Forati
Mountain goats are not a dominant species… on Earth. But imagine what a planet with dominant mountain goats could look like. What would its geology and hydrology look like? A planet full of mountains next to oceans filled with meat-eating predators? What about non-mountainous areas? …Maybe there are other species living on flatland islands?
Geology, hydrology, and geography can also play an important role in narrative conflict, too. Whether people want already-occupied land or are expanding across waterways, composition of planets is vital for planet development.
Risks and Special Traits (Magic, Flight, etc.) of a Sci-Fi Planet
Rsks and special traits are often more about story building rather than worldbuilding.
This is where a planet becomes truly unique. Maybe it has regular lightning storms or hundreds of active volcanoes. …maybe sporadic earthquakes?
Physics, too, can be played with. Thanks to different gravities or magnetic fields, people could fly without wings, or just leap and bound around their neighborhoods.
Resources can abound, too. What is the planet’s unobtanium? Does it need to be mined or, perhaps, filtered from the air. There are so many ways a planet’s natural resources can be explored. And there are so many ways to create conflict through resource exploitation.
That’s actually the path I chose for my sci fi planet of Straephrob, which has many mountainous regions that are mined by peoples from other planets. But I’ll tell you that story some other time.
Until next time, keep creating.
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