# Fictional worlds that make the least sense **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 6, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636 "2014-02-06T03:26:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/21 "2014-02-06T22:51:27Z")
Oz? I believe the explanation is “A wizard did it”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/22 "2014-02-06T22:55:04Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The world of _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel._ Magic exists, the northern half of England had been ruled by a wizard with an army of elves for centuries… and yet, none of this has any impact on European history, which is identical to that of the real world. In fact, two magicians who are powerful enough to literally teleport entire cities halfway around the world take an active part in the Napoleonic Wars and yet have no effect on them whatsoever, with the Battle of Waterloo occurring on the exact same date as it did in our reality. Also . . . for no reason ever explained, it appears that only Englishmen can do any magic of any kind. There is “English magic” and there is nothing else, no other country (and we see many others, including colonial Louisiana) has any or ever has had. (Napoleon tries to hire his own magician, but the one applicant mentioned turns out to be a fraud.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/23 "2014-02-06T23:02:18Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Actually, the thing that bothered me most about Dune is that it appears to be unbelievably DRY. Water is sold on the street, and people wear stillsuits to keep their water instead of sweating it away (does no one get heatstroke on Arrakis? Our bodies sweat for a reason). But you need water to grow plants. You need ample water for people. No desert area on earth seems to be as dry as Arrakis. There don’t seem to be any oases or areas of open water. The Fremen keep their secret stores of water, I know, but what the hell is everyone eating and drinking? Much has been made of Frank Herbert’s ecological thinking, but what the heck is the water cycle on Dune like? > > And the sandworms make the least sense of all. Hard to believe they get that big eating whatever’s wandering around the desert, when there don’t seem to be any open plants for them to eat. And powering your way through sand has GOT to be one of the least energy-efficient methods of travel there is. They’d have to be gulping down herds of desert beasts. On top of which, I can’t believe the damned worms don’t drink, the stuff about how you make Water-Of-Life notwithstanding. The idea of them getting the water they need to maintain their metabolism from the bodies of their victims, like kangaroo rats extracting water from the seeds they eat, strikes me as ludicrous. > > Actually, as others have noted in the past, the idea of tagging an alien planet as a “desert world”, or an “ice World” (Like Hoth in Star Wars) seems unlikely and shortsighted. An entire world has room and reasons for multiple environments, as Earth has. A lot of biological processes on earth take place in the ocean, but Dune has no oceans. In one of the later novels, I think it was _Heretics of Dune,_ it is established that the sandworms are not native to Arrakis (where they came from and how they got to Arrakis is not clear), and that sandworms will turn **any** planet where they are introduced into a desert planet. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/24 "2014-02-06T23:03:52Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Oz. Well, yeah. But, you know, Oz. The idea that it should make sense makes no sense, I mean, it’s not even the Discworld, it’s written for children. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/25 "2014-02-06T23:14:01Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The setting of The Walking Dead, society entirely collapsed and 99% of people were zombified in 2 weeks? Actually, that’s about right. [Here’s a video explaining the math.](http://www.teq.com/blog/2013/03/the-math-of-a-zombie-apocalypse/#.UvQVwrSzxR0) Exponents add up fast. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/26 "2014-02-06T23:23:10Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I dunno - Mars, for instance, is a desert world. Just not a very hot one. And the Earth was a big ball of ice for a few tens of millions of years at one point… ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/27 "2014-02-06T23:28:33Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Oz? I believe the explanation is “A wizard did it”. The Fairy Queen Lurline, to be more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/28 "2014-02-06T23:30:22Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > Wow! Sounds like a Tea Party extremist (not just a Tea-Partier, but an extremist amongst their population) writing what he thinks is a prophetic sci-fi novel. I can’t imagine wanting to read (much less buy) such a tome after even a hint of such a hate-filled premise for a milieu. > > This kind of hardly-realistic schlock was predicted as publishing companies declined in the face of on-line publishing and Vanity Presses. Stuff like hyper-feminist dystopias in which men are mere slaves/sperm-donors kept in cages like chattel (Yes, I’m familiar with the etymology), stuff like bleak smog-covered Earths with people drinking recycled urine because the storm-drains are too toxic (but cleaner than the rivers and natural supplies). One of the things a decent editor does is cast a critical eye on the milieu (but that’s part of a different thread on publishing that’s floating around here somewhere). > > Quite frankly, I never thought much of the Atlas Shrugged dystopia in which researchers and corporate moguls ditch it all and just disappear to some sanctuary/hideaway camp in the middle of nowhere. But that’s mainly because satellite imagery has made it impossible to find a ‘middle of nowhere’ that can’t be found. > > –G! > Okay, so maybe that’s not the least sense I’ve seen described, but it didn’t carry a shred of believability for me. Yeah, it’s bizarre because Dan Simmons looks like a Lefty, lives in a Lefty town, and held a number of Leftist opinions (and still does re: gun control, abortion, and other issues.) But the man just _hates_ himself [some Muslims…](http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm) OTOH, I like _Atlas Shrugged_. It’s the only apocalyptic novel I can think of where society falls apart because of a philosophical crisis. Of course, I’m helped in my assumption that all pieces of fiction takes place on Earth’s that looks like ours, but is not, so I don’t worry too much if people act implausibly or have crazy beliefs or give 60+ page-long speeches. 😉 Yeah, it won’t happen in our world but I’m not reading about our world. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/29 "2014-02-06T23:30:48Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > The Fairy Queen Lurline, to be more accurate. Heh…I was just scrolling down to post that… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/30 "2014-02-06T23:38:09Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Yeah, it’s bizarre because Dan Simmons looks like a Lefty, lives in a Lefty town, and held a number of Leftist opinions (and still does re: gun control, abortion, and other issues.) But the man just _hates_ himself [some Muslims…](http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm) What makes it even weirder is that he wasn’t always that way: his masterpiece, the Hyperion novels from the early 1990s, features a heroic Palestinian Muslim super-soldier as one of its central - and most compelling - characterd. If you asked me \*then \*what religion he hated , I certainly wouldn’t say Islam. The Catholic church, on the other hand… I think 9/11 broke something in him. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/31 "2014-02-06T23:40:09Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think 9/11 broke something in him. There was a whole lot of that going around… ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/32 "2014-02-06T23:47:09Z")
Simmons wrote a short story, published before _Hyperion_, about Flashback. It was set in an America beginning to seriously stumble because of the severity of the nation’s Flashback addiction and had the following things similar to the (much later) novel: 1. Japanese bad guys 2. Blaming the President 3. The country crumbling under the debt load Otoh, a few differences were: 1. Nothing about Islam 2. Reagan took the blunt of the blame, not Obama So he has always had a thing about the national debt and Japanese ownership of American assets, even in the late 80s when such fears were in vogue. Looks like he never got rid of them and decided to expand the story to encompass full-blown xenophobia. (I forgot to mention: In the book, all those 22 million Mexicans settled in the American SW (CA, AZ, NZ) and, in the course of the novel, they revolted, making Los Angeles part of a new Hispanic country. I don’t think the book concerned itself with the inevitable Japanese response, or that Dan even thought about the fact that, perhaps, the Japanese would be upset at losing the second largest city in the country.) ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/33 "2014-02-07T00:03:51Z")
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra (in other words, the Star Trek world in which people talk only in metaphor). How do you ever develop spaceflight if you are forced to say “no, I mean’t the .85 millimeter calipers, not the .9 millimeter calipers” in the form of a metaphor? (etc etc etc) ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/34 "2014-02-07T00:23:29Z")
Fantasy RPGs are terrible for this. In the worlds of Baldur’s Gate and Fable, free teleportation exists, yet is only used for adventurers saving on shoe leather: meanwhile trade is carried out by motley bands of pedlars carting their goods through the wilderness, prey to every ravening bugbear and oogy-boogy, and requiring nonstop help from lone ne’er-do-wells with swords. It hasn’t apparently occurred to any merchants that they could stick the stuff straight into in the teleports, all the brigands would starve and everybody else would get rich. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/35 "2014-02-07T00:23:43Z")
What standards are we using here? E.g., is something as silly-and-who-cares as Flash Gordon’s Mongo or John Carter’s Barsoom simply outside the discussion? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/36 "2014-02-07T00:32:17Z")
I’m surprised I’m the first to mention A Song of Ice and Fire - the winters last how long? The summers last how long? How does that… work in terms of growing stuff? How on earth are any of these people going to live through the winter? Even if there weren’t a war on? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/37 "2014-02-07T00:58:06Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I’m surprised I’m the first to mention A Song of Ice and Fire - the winters last how long? The summers last how long? How does that… work in terms of growing stuff? How on earth are any of these people going to live through the winter? Even if there weren’t a war on? I believe it’s mentioned in passing that one of the things you do is save up lots and lots of grain so that people will be able to survive multi-year winters. (Of course when there’s a war going on and lots of refugees are eating up your grain surpluses you’re kind of screwed… but in the general case it’s a question that has an answer.) (It’s also unclear at this point whether a 5-year winter means 5-years-snowed-in or just 5 years of much lower crop yields.) ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/38 "2014-02-07T01:11:28Z")
The planet in **Pitch Black**. So the sun only goes down every 20 _years_, but when it does there’s enormous winged creatures, that can’t exist in the light, that un-hibernate and wreak havoc. How did that animal evolve under those conditions? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/39 "2014-02-07T01:28:23Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra (in other words, the Star Trek world in which people talk only in metaphor). How do you ever develop spaceflight if you are forced to say “no, I mean’t the .85 millimeter calipers, not the .9 millimeter calipers” in the form of a metaphor? (etc etc etc) “Tagord, in woodshop.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636/40 "2014-02-07T01:32:27Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra (in other words, the Star Trek world in which people talk only in metaphor). How do you ever develop spaceflight if you are forced to say “no, I mean’t the .85 millimeter calipers, not the .9 millimeter calipers” in the form of a metaphor? (etc etc etc) For that matter, if you only speak in metaphor, how do you communicate the stories that form the metaphors in the first place? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-worlds-that-make-the-least-sense/680636.md?page=3)