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<blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 6650754" data-attributes="member: 13107"><p>I'm thinking the universe "at large", meaning, stuff outside of our galaxy, is far out of mind for a lot folks. And there seems to be a lot of confusion over the meaning of "galaxy" and "universe", even from science fiction. And lots of folks really don't understand the scale of things.</p><p></p><p>Consider the voice over from Firefly, and the distribution of planets, which is a fair bit of nonsense. Or the tiny geography of Babylon 5.</p><p></p><p>But there are stories which deal with either the structure of our galaxy, or that span galaxies. Star Trek, Niven's Known Space, the Marvel universe, Brin's Uplift novels, the Star Gate: Universe, and Warhammer 40K, to name a few.</p><p></p><p>I'm thinking, though, that to involve that scale and have events be approachable or meaningful on a human scale, and to have the scale provide a relevant part of the store, is difficult. I think it shows up more in the background: In the WH40K universe, with its vast imponderable empire of a million start systems, or in Star Trek, with the time to reach to gamma quadrant. Or Asimov's Foundation series. In only a few story lines does intergalactic geography show up as a strong story element. Say, Reynolds Revelation Space or Brin's Uplift Universe.</p><p></p><p>Of course, there are other extremes, say, "Bright of the Sky", by Kay Kenyon, which presents a parallel universe which spans our own. Or Egan's "Diaspora", which presents a mind-boggling big ensemble of parallel universes. However, while these are enormous in scope, they don't make use of intergalactic geography as a story element.</p><p></p><p>The only story that I can think of that strongly uses intergalactic features to drive the story (in this case, the billion year hence collision of galaxies) is Revelation space. Anyone have other good examples?</p><p></p><p>Thx!</p><p></p><p>TomB</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="tomBitonti, post: 6650754, member: 13107"] I'm thinking the universe "at large", meaning, stuff outside of our galaxy, is far out of mind for a lot folks. And there seems to be a lot of confusion over the meaning of "galaxy" and "universe", even from science fiction. And lots of folks really don't understand the scale of things. Consider the voice over from Firefly, and the distribution of planets, which is a fair bit of nonsense. Or the tiny geography of Babylon 5. But there are stories which deal with either the structure of our galaxy, or that span galaxies. Star Trek, Niven's Known Space, the Marvel universe, Brin's Uplift novels, the Star Gate: Universe, and Warhammer 40K, to name a few. I'm thinking, though, that to involve that scale and have events be approachable or meaningful on a human scale, and to have the scale provide a relevant part of the store, is difficult. I think it shows up more in the background: In the WH40K universe, with its vast imponderable empire of a million start systems, or in Star Trek, with the time to reach to gamma quadrant. Or Asimov's Foundation series. In only a few story lines does intergalactic geography show up as a strong story element. Say, Reynolds Revelation Space or Brin's Uplift Universe. Of course, there are other extremes, say, "Bright of the Sky", by Kay Kenyon, which presents a parallel universe which spans our own. Or Egan's "Diaspora", which presents a mind-boggling big ensemble of parallel universes. However, while these are enormous in scope, they don't make use of intergalactic geography as a story element. The only story that I can think of that strongly uses intergalactic features to drive the story (in this case, the billion year hence collision of galaxies) is Revelation space. Anyone have other good examples? Thx! TomB [/QUOTE]
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