I am creating an artificial world called "Prortus" that is serving as a place of refuge for survivors of the nuclear war between Atlantis and Lemuria. Most of them are children and teenagers and in the beginning, the survivors of both destroyed continents managed to maintain an almost harmonious coexistence despite the regrets related to immaturity, internal conflicts and everything related to the children's world, as they swore they would not repeat the same mistakes that the adults of their homelands and they even worked together to try to start over in that vast world, however, as they grew, differences began to arise and the cycle of errors repeated itself to the point that new wars and divisions over millennia culminated in the construction of a wall of great dimensions that divide the continent into two parts like a continental blockade inserted in a political context similar to the cold war with deep religious and ethnic prejudices and both sides of the continent have controversial policies with mixed-races, albinos and people with skin problems (vitiligo). So my big question is: how did these two sides, even though they hated each other deeply and lived in a sort of Apartheid, continued to "interact" with each other to the point where some of them had children? Sorry for my english, it's not my native language and I'm also new to this forum
I think the problem would disappear if you think more in terms of individuals. People aren't ants, they don't all think and behave the same way. All of them? Again, I must ask—all of them? Romeo and Juliet was set in the midst of a long-standing feud between two clans, but yet they fell in love. Often when soldiers are fighting in a foreign land they meet and fall in love with locals, sometimes even if they're 'the enemy'. People are gonna do what people do, regardless of the politics of their groups. And it's not always just love—friendship can happen between people belonging to opposed political factions too. People can grow out of group identification, in fact likely many of them already have but pretend just so they don't have to face punishment for dissenting. If you've ever read 1984 that's a pretty good example of how people grow out of political brainwashing (or never bought into it to begin with) and manage to develop associations based on their own real beliefs, which aren't as simple or divisive as the propaganda. I suppose the answer depends on the political setup in your story. Do both sides have totalitarian states, that punish dissenters? If so maybe there's a place where dissidents can escape to and have a free society. Or maybe there are many such places—small scattered settlements in case one or more get discovered and destroyed. In those settlements people from both sides could get to know each other. If the states aren't repressive and authoritarian then there's no reason people can't have their own opinions, politically or otherwise. And even if the original generation who founded the two states all personally hated the other side, their offspring won't necessarily feel the same way. Children often rebel against the beliefs of their parents. In fact often the youngsters want to do exactly what's forbidden, just to break the rules. There are many ways people could fall out of this group identification and meet people from the other side.
In the current context of this world where many governments are with totalitarian tendencies I would say that this image of the "enemy" ended up being strengthened, but just like in other times with other rulers and titles, not all people follow this rule. And that's exactly why I even thought about creating "neutral zones", settlements in more distant regions and even some groups creating support houses and orphanages to receive mixed-race children or children who are not considered "pure blood" or outside that locality.
It would be out of necessity, or perhaps want of resources, tech, and services. Rebuilding society could be a collaborative effort; maybe one side knows the basics of a magic reactor, and the other side has the access or knowledge needed to produce the... maginuranium required. Who knows how to remove an appendix? Maybe that doctor will be sent to train on the opposing side for a few years in exchange for a few engineers. Merchants in general master the navigation of resource surplus and shortage on a variety of scales, which would absolutely exist between the two recovering nations. Art also has a way of blending and transcending borders. Soviet Russians were copying contraband western rock songs onto wax records! And art tends to have an evolution of sorts that could inspire the contemporaries to engage, if not in ideas expressed then perhaps methods. Artists are more open-minded in general, so it's likely enough. You could also associate the race blending with a lower order if you're really aiming to drive home the ethnic prejudices with a dash of classism. Perhaps only prisoners are exported to the other's mine or farm for hard labour, and there they end up copulating with either other prisoners or the locals. It can be rough receiving intolerance from each of your parent ethnicities.
Sua menção à arte como algo além das divisões realmente me deu mais perspectiva, primeiro porque pode haver casos de grupos mais ricos admirando secretamente obras de arte e invenções de nacionalidades inimigas e justificando-a como "apenas um hobby excêntrico", afinal, ninguém ousaria enfrentá-los por seus gostos pessoais devido ao nível de influência que poderia facilmente acabar com a vida de alguém. Além disso, os presos com infrações não tão graves a ponto de serem banidos de Prortus poderiam ser enviados para fazer esses trabalhos em condições de semi-escravidão para cumprir pena até um determinado número de anos, e as crianças nascidas lá que não são enviadas para orfanatos ou casas de apoio seriam usadas como experimento para melhorar o tratamento de uma doença genética decorrente dos efeitos da radiação causada pela guerra nuclear, já que esses mestiços têm alguma imunidade e em troca, além de receberem documentação, também seriam enviados para garantir assentamentos em zonas de guerra neutras ou em locais mais distantes dos pólos de influência política.
Whoah... have I fallen into the Twilight Zone??! Here's an idea—maybe the giant wall is falling into extreme disrepair and teams of people on both sides are working to fix it. But there are huge gaps and people sneak through at night. And I mean, so many gaps, and everything is in such disarray (though both governments of course deny the problems) that entire families can get through. Of course there's still the problem of two different races, but @Not the Territory suggested migrant workers (Wall Slaves, like Pyramid slaves?) on each side, from the other side. That's an excellent idea, and has a lot of historical precedents of course. It creates a mixed-up story world where people of either race can hide out on either side and not stand out. And maybe the migrant lower classes are sort of 'invisible' on both sides, nobody talks to them except to give orders. There could be huge migrant villages set up near the wall, where the workers live, and where illegal immigrants could live in hiding among them.
For sure, because a wall of this magnitude that separates a continent in half is very difficult to maintain correctly, especially in regions further away from the political poles. There are a lot of expenses and not even the biggest economic powers are able to withdraw so much money from the public coffers for this, even because they need to distribute this income to other maintenance services, such as teams to take care of local forests so that they do not grow to the point of devastating regions, the terrarium walls do not get too damp or suffer other types of wear and tear that could threaten human life in this world. And unlike us, these people have the notion that if they don't take care of the place that hosts them, they can end up being extinct, because it's not an easy task to live inside a planet and use the inner core as a driving force to maintain everything working. But getting back to the point, one of the main neutral zones is located on the edge of the wall and some of the settlements in that place even achieved a city status after a few centuries. These points, in addition to attracting many refugees and expatriates, are also places of illegal trade, whether for you to get objects on the other side of the wall or outside the limits of Prortus, exactly in our world, or to obtain documentation that grants you the right of having a home and having access to basic services without having to submit their children to these testing programs for the treatment of the disease. Settlements, small cities, villages underground or scattered inside the wall, some problems with pests and food, and it can even be quite controversial many times, but without a doubt if you are considered as a non-pureblood, this region can be a a blessing or a curse, depending on the circumstances you are going there and with which company. Otherwise, you could try your luck going north where the frozen lands are near the edge of the terrarium wall or take a ship to the southern islands, inspection is less but much more dangerous.
I like the idea. They live inside the planet? Interesting. It raises the question, how do they get enough light, for forests to grow, and enough air? But I'm assuming they have advanced technology, being Atlantis and Lemuria, and you already said they had a nuclear war. So doubtless they can create as much light inside the earth as they need.
Eu estava pensando neles sendo capazes de aproveitar a energia do núcleo interno. Há uma câmara subterrânea secreta em uma das ilhas do sul que só pessoas autorizadas podem acessar e lá é mantido o núcleo interno, que além de ser o "coração" do terrário também seria capaz de projetar uma fonte de luz semelhante a o sol e que tem comportamentos semelhantes. E sobre eles morando no interior do planeta, você já ouviu as histórias sobre cavernas com passagens secretas espalhadas pelo mundo? Júlio Verne tem várias histórias com esse tema, muitos grupos indígenas também, eles acreditam que uma sociedade avançada está vivendo em algum lugar subterrâneo e eu quis aproveitar a ideia. Os sobreviventes podem ter conseguido recriar suas sociedades, mas se você perceber, eles ainda são refugiados em seu próprio planeta e dependem muito do terrário para sobreviver, pois com a mistura genética, os efeitos da radiação e até as condições climáticas do terrário, sua biologia mudou, não tão drasticamente ao ponto de ter três olhos ou algo parecido, mas eles se sentiriam muito vulneráveis de vir à superfície precisamente por causa de suas habilidades mágicas e sua estatura um pouco maior.
sorry for the inconvenience, as i said at the beginning my english is not the best and sometimes i need help to correct some sentences and i ended up getting totally confused. I was thinking of them being able to harness the energy of the inner core. There is a secret underground chamber on one of the southern islands that only authorized people can access and that is where the inner core is kept, which in addition to being the "heart" of the terrarium would also be able to project a source of light similar to the sun and that has similar behaviors. And about them living in the interior of the planet, have you heard the stories about caves with secret passages scattered around the world? Jules Verne has several stories with this theme, many indigenous groups too, they believe that an advanced society is living somewhere underground and I wanted to take advantage of the idea. The survivors may have managed to recreate their societies, but if you realize, they are still refugees on their own planet and are heavily dependent on the terrarium to survive, as with the genetic mix, the effects of radiation, and even the terrarium's climatic conditions, its biology changed, not so drastically to the point of having three eyes or something like that, but they would feel very vulnerable coming to the surface precisely because of their magical abilities and their slightly larger stature.
Yes, I am familiar with the idea, from several sources including Verne and Poe. What I was wondering about though is more specific—do they have something like a small sun in each cavern, with cycles of day and night, as was done in Journey to the Center of the Earth, or do they just use artificial light like street lights? Sorry, this goes way beyond your original intent for this thread, we're supposed to be answering your questions, not asking you our own questions! I'm just curious though. In his Long Sun series Gene Wolfe had a world that was a vast space station—a long cylinder that rotates to create artificial gravity—and the 'long sun' was a sort of gigantic light filament that runs through the center of the cylinder that's always lit brightly, but there's a half-cylindrical shield that rotates around it so half of the interior of the station is in light and the other half in shadow. I'm just wondering if you have anything similar, or if they just have light fixtures everywhere—something like street lights.
First, no need to apologize for your curiosity, in fact I am very happy to see that my world building raises these questions. And to be honest, I still haven't managed to assemble this detail very well, I was thinking that there really was a storage capsule in the chamber and that it would allow the creation of a vertical beam of light that, when reaching the sky, would form a small sun, but it it wouldn't be static, as the capsule is rotating all the time inside the chamber, so day and night and seasons continue to exist. Furthermore, half of the continent worships the figure of the Sun as a source of salvation while the other half worships the figure of the Moon as it brings fertility and welcome.
Yes, if the light projector is aimed off-center quite a ways so it doesn't point right to the center of the dome, and it rotates, half of the chamber would be in darkness while the other half is in light. I think you'd need a different mechanism to create seasons though, unless it's summer where it's daytime and winter at night. That wouldn't work, crops need longer seasons (unless they've developed some kind of crazy genetically modified crops, or they grow some kind of fungus from which they synthesize all their food or something). Maybe something like another projector, but of infrared beams, that heats the dome of the roof where it hits but doesn't make visible light, and it rotates much slower. Definitely do some research though, don't take my word for it. I don't know if infrared light can really heat things up that much. Maybe just say they use some kind of heat beam.
I'm feeling it's better to find another way to create the artificial sun and leave the energy of the inner core as the driving force for the generation of the terrarium's protective field.
