The process of developing a new world started off with an old idea, a dystopian world where humans and animals depended on each other for survival.
Oh just tea time with the family bear, Stepan.
Much inspired by real life stories of how some men have animals considered ferocious beasts as pets – only but a distant dream of mine. Popular examples include The Lion Man and Stepan the Family Bear (Russians.).
I thought this world was very much related to The Golden Compass and How To Train Your Dragon. Where you have a ferocious beast of your own, and where the actually docile animals are considered threatening.
After pitching the idea, I was down to two questions, what makes this bond essential, what or who are they fighting against and what caused the current state of the earth?
I also decided to explore more on a pre-apocalyptic world instead of a post-apocalyptic world. Figuring that they could be fighting against the clock to salvage their Earth from dying.
Googling “Why is the Earth dying” lead me to these helpful articles:
A scientific explanation, complete with graphs, about extinction rates, biodiversity, and possible ways to avert the situation. The ideas referred from this article is summarised in this mind map:
I also made a discovery that “Dying Earth” is a whole science fantasy sub genre on its own and it even has it’s own Wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth_(subgenre) that includes numerous examples of the same genre and how the idea of the Dying Earth was conceived differently by different authors. Popular concepts included a dying (or dead) Sun, and time travelling.
Eventually… I decided to put a pause to developing this world as I wasn’t that impressed by this idea anymore, though it could possibly work. Also, somewhere in-between research, I came across a short film that referred to a goldfish, and how they’re known for their 7 seconds memory.
Ok, so, what if people only had a day’s worth of memory? Maybe that’s a bit far fetched and the world wouldn’t be able to function. So.. What if people had limited memory… according to the years, either
According to the years they lived, or
According to the years they have to live
I decided that the latter (1 year left to live = 1 day of memory) was more interesting because it would mean that there is a potential of their memory days decreasing every year, and a possibility that memory days could be influenced by lifestyle choices. Will the people of this world know the numbers of years they have to live? Or will they eventually forget?
Maybe, people could have partitioned memory, with default memory capacity to remember the languages they spoke, and perhaps their name.
Where there is a existing concept about “Future Memory” and how memory could become a form of trade and commerce, how memory is tangible. In the same page, there are also other users’ contributions on how a world like this would work. I thought this page was useful and relatable for developing my world.
At this point, I thought the main storyline would be a main character investigating the truth and system behind the memory of this world. Still no idea who is behind all these. But the possible conflicts would be a race against time, to accomplish something before you forget. There would be a possible villain behind all these, and a possibility of people forgetting how things work in this world because it’s been forgotten as it’s washed down generations after generations. Or, maybe one day, the main character suddenly has a much lesser memory capacity and he has to save himself from dying.
I was reminded of West World, where artificial intelligence started recalling their past lives.
Next, was researching about films related to memory.
The first film, Momento, is about a guy that’s basically like… Dory from Finding Dory. He has short term memory after an accident and he is unable to make new memories. He has a system of polaroids and tattoos to help him as he investigates his current situation. I envisioned a similar system in my world.
I think I am more drawn towards the memory idea. I might just write two stories. But for now, I think I need to talk to people about the memory idea to see how feasible it is and generate more discussions and ideas.
