On Worldbuilding: Fallen Civilizations! [ Forbidden West | Halo | Doctor Who ]

So... this is the worst performing video I've had in a long time, and by a shocking mile, and I don't understand why. Comments/likes/shares for the algorithm are appreciated <3 I'm a published author! Read 'Panstellar' in MacroMicroCosm Literary Journal www.vraeydamedia.ca/shop/macr... — one by one, the stars are going out. A story about death and endings. World Anvil are amazing, kind people and WILL improve your worldbuilding go get it COWARDS I say with love : www.worldanvil.com/

Imagine the Roman Empire Falling... This post was brought to you by Byzantine Empire Gang Seriously though, great video. Point 7 is extremely underrated in wider discussions of historical collapse/transformation. The tricky thing is that, in a lot of circumstances (Bronze Age, Ancient Egypt, Rome, Mongol Empire, British Empire) the process is so drawn out that it's hard to actually recognize it as it's happening. Ask 5 historians "When Did Rome Fall" and you'll get 7 answers, ranging from 27 BC to 200s AD to 405 or 410 or 476 AD to 641 AD to 1204 AD to 1453 AD to 1461 AD. There's a case to be made for each of them, depending on how you define "Fall" and "Of Rome". Yet, in every circumstance, life went on afterwards. Fantasy stories can of course be far more catastrophic with their narratives, since the scales and stakes are bigger, but the example of real-world history still shows that it's more than big explosions and wars. -B

I live in Russia so looking at abandoned gargantuan Soviet factories and warehouses gives me a rough idea what post-roman world felt like.

Hey, already saw this on Nebula a few days ago but just wanted to stop by again to show my appreciation; this was a fantastic video, Tim, really enjoyed it!

09:14 I can think of a few in the context of my country: Namibia (these kinda also count for South Africa) We Bantu (black) Namibians look at our precolonial history as a time of peace, prosperity and social progress that the "damn violent Europeans" came to disrupt completely, whilst ignoring the wars we fought amongst ourselves, as well as our conquest and slavery of the Khoisan/Khoekhoe people (the OG natives here) and the remarkably violent legal system that existed in our domains. Afrikaner Namibians see themselves as a fellow native people that was racially inclusive and that did not colonise, but merely migrated into lands that were depopulated by the Zulus during their wars of conquest. According to them, it was the Brits and Germans who were truly racist. This, whilst they ignore the proto-Apartheid legal system they put up in their Boer Republics. The coloureds view themselves politically as part of what we call the "historically disadvantaged groups", this meaning in all ways but cultural. They, however, often forget that they ended up in southern africa east/north of the cape through the exact same method of migration and foundation of Dutch speaking Republics (the Great and Dorsland Treks) as the Afrikaners. They just pulled the short end of the stick in their relationship with the whites because of their brown skin. These positions are all based loosely in truth, but are hilariously misconstrued to victimise the own team, which leads to the oddly interesting situation where political disagreement is almost never based on what policy is needed to bring the country forward, but rather on how to interpret history. As for the German Namibians, they just think of themselves in exactly the same way their ancestors did at the turn of the 20th century, but with a bit of an inclusive "but now we are all namibians, and we all can be germans" twist. By no means are all of these positions believed by the entirety of the population. They are just rather widespread.

One of the most absolutely hilarious and weird bits of Halo is that in the first game Master Chief finds out the most earth shattering, horrifying truths in the universe, the kind of stuff that reframes you whole world view and he basically just rolls with it. He finds out that the spooky bug aliens he’s been killing are actually eldritch horrors that once consumed nearly all life and that the ring he’s standing on is a giant weapon designed for galactic genocide and his reaction to this all this is to go, ‘huh’ and then just kind of reload his weapon and keep going without a beat missed. Like he understands the creepy bugs need to die and that the big ring needs to stay turned off but those are basically tactical concerns, he never deals with the implications of this information. It’s a funny way to deal with the fallen world story structure but it still leaves a lot on the table, stuff that thankfully gets dealt with in later games and books.

Throughout this video, I'm constantly reminded of the "Blame!" manga written by Tsutomu Nihei. It's entirely set in the leftovers of a society that through their own mistake, eradicate themselves. It's wonderfully illustrated and would very much recommend it to anyone interested in this genre, even if manga isn't exactly your thing.

Another aspect that comes up in historical collapses is the cascade. It isn't just one bad thing, but a chain of bad things that make each successive wave worse. Like, you raise a giant army to deal with a foreign invasion but OH NO, we just hit an economic crisis and now we can't pay the soldiers their promised wages so they start mutinying and raiding which causes a food crisis and on and on.

I went to university for creative writing and graduated with a bachelors degree in it several years ago. I say this because your channel is orders of magnitude better than any of the classes I took. Giving much better advise, in a much more understandable way, with much better examples than anything I got from my professors. I’d say you’ve helped improve my writing far more than my college ever did without even looking at it. Also I’ve fallen in love with anvils writing tools but I do wish that they would add a map making feature as well.

Tim's gotten enough in the (very good) habit of sharing passages from his stories in videos that I can tell when it's a bit of his writing even before he does the cheeky "reveal". Super excited to get to read more!!

That passage from Toaster and Motherboard was some of the best imagery I’ve heard a while. It so perfectly evoked the feeling of irrevocable loss that ancient civilizations aim for. Great work!

I’m currently in school to be a paleontologist and it’s honestly exactly like this, seeing a world ruled by ancient creatures that no longer exist. Ancient reptiles that seem to defy the laws of gravity and tower high into the heavens, or enormous marine predators that would inspire the stories of sea monsters had they been alive today. We see these constant trends of a near cosmopolitan distribution of certain species, only for them to eventually disappear. It quite honestly reads like a story if you understand what the rock layers mean. We study the rise and fall of countless species, from periods of unimaginable diversity with creatures so fantastical it seems they should only be able to exist in your wildest dreams, to the greatest biodiversity crises the globe has ever seen. We are missing so many pages from this story, maybe we get a letter or maybe a whole word per page of what should be a 4,600 page book, but we’re still able to piece together the basic storyline. And one of the most fascinating aspects to me personally, is that these were just animals. They weren’t monsters like in Halo or Doctor Who, they bred and fought and ate like animals. They interacted with each other not out of monstrosity but rather necessity. We seem to be in a sort of golden age of paleontology with so many discoveries being made but the reality is that we truly do know so little. We don’t even get the luxury of ancient writing that told us exactly what was going on, as we have to piece it together based on what we know today. Many of these species left no living descendants, and their remains are an enigma that even after decades of research we are still trying to understand. To me, it’s honestly the greatest story never told.

22:55 The bronze age collapse 23:06 The bronze age collapse 23:23 The bronze age collapse 23:43 The bronze age collapse 23:50 The bronze age collapse 24:07 The bronze age collapse… again Man the bronze age collapse was rough

A lot of people have always admired ancient Sparta for their supposed bravery and military discipline and camaraderie between men. they look at Thermopylae and see something that they wish to emulate. When Sparta was an oppressive quasi dual-monarchy that had chattel slavery, enforced conscription for children to become soldiers and a whole host draconian laws that prevented its citizens from pursuing interests against the will of the state.

You have no idea how much I needed this in order to get past a particularly difficult writing hurdle. Having a fallen civilization as a major component and not being able to properly flesh it out was getting to me because I hadn't properly thought out how the collapse took place. Its too easy to think one or two different things were the cause but it was the section on "collapse is complicated" that put everything into a greater sense of perspective for me. Thank you so much for these great resources you make freely available. Deepest appreciation!

Props to you on getting your short story published. That's totally something worth being proud of!

Actually I think the best reference for the final moments of a collapse (largely because because it's well documented) isn't so much Rome, as the Soviet Union. A very quick, near overnight collapse which was the culmination of decades of lead up. Fundamentally collapsing when it's member states effectively said, "ehh, this isn't worth it" the status quo stopped being worth maintaining and the empire disbanded or collapsed.

In Flanders (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), we idolise the medieval era, as Flemish cities in that time were among the richest in Europe. A lot of people also idolise the 'Guldensporenslag' (Battle of the Golden Spurs) in this time period, where 'Flemish' farmers and workers 'defeated' 'French' knights. All of this ignores the fact that 1) 'Flemish' cities would have thought of themselves as Flemish in this period, but mostly identified by their local county or city, at most maybe the concept of a 'Diets' culture (Diets='language of the people', the Old Dutch word for Old Dutch), 2) that the Battle of the Golden Spurs wasn't a 'glorious victory over the French-speakers', but rather a small-time rebellion against the French king's taxes and the elite.... which also only won one major battle, and was squashed a year after that battle, 3) that it was still the fucking medieval age with all that entails. Meanwhile, Wallonia (French-speaking part of Belgium) idolises pre-ww1 Belgium. They believe Belgium was more united in this era, and long back to the time in which we were a major industrial and scientific power (relative to our size) in Europe, with our coal mines providing a lot of wealth and jobs. This ignores that the Flemish were treated as effectively second-grade citizens in this era (also the main reason for our modern political divide, though not the only one), that the Flemish movement was already born in this era, and, y'know, it was the Industrial Revolution and all that entails.

As a huge fan of halo, it feels so good to see you discuss the forerunners and the wonderous feeling of discovery that i felt when i first played halo ce. Amazing video as always Tim!

One fallen civilisation that interests me is the one from One Piece. Oda has been writing for 25 years and dripfeeding tiniest scraps of info the entire time about this Kingdom that has been the most fascinating case of “what the fuck happened” that somehow he’s been able to keep people interested for over 1000 chapters now. Somehow he still manages to make chapters that almost once a week that leave you like “what does this mean?”