Had this idea today, want to see what everyone thinks of it... It Was Chinese New Year, 2024, when The Waning began. No one noticed at first, everything seemed normal, except the incidence of wild animal attacks rapidly rose to levels that would have been considered madness before the beginning of the Waning. However, as the months went on, everyone started to notice something: no one was getting pregnant. Something else changed too, crops planted by humans or any machine would not grow. Our stored food lasted for a month of vicious rationing, but all too soon rioting and robbery took hold as hunger made tempers flare. By the end of the year the whole world was engulfed in Somalia level civil war, and civilization effectively collapsed. Twenty One Years later in a high tech survivor's compound in northern Australia the answer was found: Gaia, the spirit of the living Earth, had awoken in terrible pain from all the harm we were doing her, and with the glacially slow thought process that typifies a sapient PLANET decided the best way to deal with our bullshit was to revoke all her blessings from us: we could neither sire nor bear children, we could not make the earth bring forth it's bounty, and all the animals which had not been warped by our hand till they were tied to our dominance instead of hers had declared war. Yet, there was HOPE, blessings so revoked could in theory be given again, but more importantly, part of making this discovery was an equally important one: the McGovern-Vader Gate, which opened a two way door between parallel universes. These findings were publicized over what was left of the internet, and satellite networks, along with the schematics for the gates, Everyone was recommended to leave the earth behind, and wander among alternate universes: our last act as a species being to warn any other worlds where we found intelligent life of what we had done and the consequences. But that wasn't what happened. As the few beleaguered survivors left the earth behind they discovered other habitable planets, and some of them, wistfully hopeful, planted gardens. Gardens which grew... Not too long later they encountered natives, and the younger humans, (those born just after the start of The Waning,) who had been raised on a culture of "fuck all you want, who cares, we're probably going to starve to death eventually anyway", seduced a few of the locals, (because, well, elves and orcs are hot...) and were astounded to discover they were not as infertile as they had thought: provided one partner was not HUMAN... Another 30 years passed, it was now 2075 AD on Imperial Terra Prime. The Earth has been recolonized by the descendants of the 90-some Million survivors of The Waning, but the culture there has changed. Farmland has been allowed to revert to scrub, and thence to young forest, massive efforts to cool the world from the effects of the greenhouse gasses released during the "Dark Age of Technology" being engaged in by every member state of the United Terran Empire. Frozen worlds where the ice age never ended are being swapped liquid water for enough blocks of ice to rebuild the Antarctic ice shelf. The new forests are being carefully encouraged to absorb as much carbon as they possibly can. Magnetic scooping sieves are being used to eliminate the chlorofluorocarbons from the upper atmosphere. The stored crude oil has been spread over the desserts to trap water in the soil and start building up the biosphere again. Meanwhile, on the other worlds we have discovered, Imperial Terra has come to dominate international discourse. The half-breed sons and daughters of the human race represent Terra's interests and frequently become mighty heroes, one of which is ME... Who Am I? Good Question... So, ah, Whatcha think?
OK, something on the order of 20 other people have looked at this thread and not said a word: I beg that at least 1 or 2 of these individuals take a minute or two to give an opinion: of any kind, about this story idea: good, bad, indifferent, please just say SOMETHING, any feedback at all would be better than this echoing silence...
Well, it's an interesting idea... Sorry, I just never know what to say in such cases. It's easy when I have something to complain about (something stupid, something that doesn't make sense, etc.), but not when the best I can come up with is some variation of "interesting idea".
First impression: Confused! Sounds like everything Sci-Fi and Fantasy mixed together. - 60 Years into the future - Travel into parallel universes - Terra-forming - A planetary consciousness / spirit. - Orcs and Elves The only thing missing is space ships and magic ;-) You basically described important events and some rough circumstances regarding the settings, races and technology. The writers would have the freedom to do almost anything (parallel universes!). But now the task is to create characters, to create a whole new world (or even worlds), to create a plot. Until then i believe that i cannot answer the question. Do i like the idea? I don't know! It might work. It might not.
I'm confused! How are people alive 21 years later without food? Where do the elves and orcs come from? Maybe it is a good idea not to have many worlds. You asked for an opinion. I think you need to narrow it down.
If your idea should "just" lead to a "modern (post-apocalyptical) world with orcs and elves" without the urgent need of the described background, I would make it somewhat more simple.
