Hallo conlangers!

On Tuesday 01 April 2014 22:37:36 Matthew George wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Sylvia Sotomayor <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> > I used to divide imagined universes into two categories: closed and open.
> > Closed universes might be very detailed, maybe even too detailed, because
> > they didn't have room in them for my imaginary planet, my world just
> > didn't fit the rules of the world in the story. Open universes, on the
> > other hand, did have room for my world and for lots more than what
> > appeared in the story. Some of these universes got that way because they
> > were just made up on the fly and were not necessarily very detailed. I
> > generally prefer the open universes.
> 
> The 'Great Tree' of the D'ni might represent the most open universe I've
> ever encountered.  It is explicitly the case that the Art encompasses
> 'impossible' physics.  I don't think that any world that can be described
> can be excluded.
> 
> I think Star Trek would be fairly closed - there are many, many stories
> that are incompatible with the setting rules.

Clearly, some fictional universes are reconcilable with each
other, and others are not.  Sylvia's test of openness - does her
own conworld fit in or not? - is pretty meaningless.  For
instance, I don't see how Star Wars is less open than Star Trek.
Of course, a world to fit into Star Wars needs to conform to
some basic conventions of that universe, but that is true of
Star Trek as well.

A more meaningful definition of an "open universe" is that one
could add more locales to it without breaking it.  In that sense,
Star Wars and Star Trek are both *very* open, as there are lots
of uncharted planetary systems in both.  Tolkien's world is less
open; it is basically restricted to one planet.  But it is not
entirely closed, either, as most of the south and east of
Middle-earth is pretty much uncharted.  (There is a sketch of a
world map, but it *very* sketchy, and just asks to be filled
with detail.)  Most other fantasy worlds are more closed, to
the point that you can hardly add more than a few insignificant
villages.

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