Twilight Eden

[Actiaeon]

Twilight Eden (The New World) is something I've been working on for awhile now, I'm just remembering that in fact there is a forum, and that I should probably post a Feedback thread.

https://chyoa.com/story/Twilight-Eden.10861

I would love to hear your feedback, as it helps me keep going, and adding to the story.
Love to hear any ideas, characters, plot points, or strange thing you would like to see encountered in the story.
Finally any criticisms, or problems with the story please let me know here as well.

Another POLL is ongoing HERE
Thank you for your time.

I've got a new poll out; please select up to 2 options. Answering it would help me out, I've got some plans in the works and would love to hear from you all as to what and who I should focus my efforts onto. Please be honest; this is also not just to focus on another character; I also want to know what character people are feeling attached to, therefore, who I am writing well. Since I need to know both, that is why it is two votes.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Durzan]

So first off, lemmy say that I really like your story.

That being said, you got some major problems from a storytelling standpoint. I know you and many others probably like the idea of just 1 man being the leader of a harem... but its already starting to stretch credibility of the story by insisting that the Human race will survive more than a couple of generations with only 1 man to serve as the primary genetic sire for the entire race. There's gonna be a huge genetic bottleneck (ya know, like what happened with the cheetahs that makes it hard for them to successfully reproduce), even if there weren't just one male; combine that with the effects of inbreeding, and humanity will for certain go extinct as each successive generation becomes more and more sterile because of these factors. To mitigate this, and keep things interesting for the story, I suggest you do a combination of the following:

1. Create an alternate branch back when there are more initial survivors found aboard the Aurora from 3 to somewhere around 120 or so. There should be a combination of fertile men, women, and children of varying ages among the survivors. If you want there to be additional casualties, have only a little over half of the survivors make it safely to the base; the rest are scattered across the planet in small groups similar to how the MC started out, but some of them die upon crash landing or are killed by the local wildlife, etc. Now, most of these extra survivors shouldn't be major characters, but background characters... ya know, NPCs; just establish that they survive and that they look to the MC for leadership. This gives the human race among the new arrivals a reasonable and varied starting gene pool that is somewhat likely to survive. Keep the characters you designated for the MC's harem as his, and the focus upon the small group of characters who now act as the leaders of the surviving humans. Have this alternate sub-route otherwise play out similarly to what happened in your original A route... except that now, the MC and his harem take on a leadership role in addition to just trying to survive.
2. Have some hundreds of frozen human embryos, sperm, and eggs found among the salvaged supplies of the Apollo and the Aurora (This can easily be implemented in the main route, but I'd recommend using it in the route with more survivors as well).
3. Have the MC and his harem discover the surviving descendants of survivors from previous colony ships.
4. Have a couple of support ships for the colony ships unexpectedly pop into the system and NOT be too significantly damaged. Have them carry a couple of dozen crew members apiece that survived the journey mostly intact, and maybe a few children as well (ya know, to jumpstart the next generation). These people would be last-ditch survivors of Earth.

In all cases, this gives the human race a decent chance at long term survival, which is half of the battle that the story you are writing is supposed to convey. It's not a guarantee, but it gives humanity a reasonable life-line.

Naturally, you'd also want to increase the stakes and the story tension to compensate for this influx of survivors and good fortune. Maybe the grey apes become more aggressive, actively seeking out humans to exterminate them; perhaps there are more of those space tentacle monsters that threaten the lives of those on board the support ships; or perhaps a few contentious bastards want to wrest control of the colony from you, or the surviving descendants of the previous colony ships are wary or even hostile to the newcomers...

Look to the anime Dr Stone for some additional inspiration.

 

[merkros]

That being said, you got some major problems from a storytelling standpoint. I know you and many others probably like the idea of just 1 man being the leader of a harem... but its already starting to stretch credibility of the story by insisting that the Human race will survive more than a couple of generations with only 1 man to serve as the primary genetic sire for the entire race. There's gonna be a huge genetic bottleneck (ya know, like what happened with the cheetahs that makes it hard for them to successfully reproduce), even if there weren't just one male; combine that with the effects of inbreeding, and humanity will for certain go extinct as each successive generation becomes more and more sterile because of these factors.

You could make it work, but you would need a flow chart and a lot of genetic luck.

Say you had three specimens: A(m), B(f), and C(f).

A(m) would breed with B(f) to create AB(m) and AB(f)
A(m) would breed with C(f) to create AC(m) and AC(f)

AB(m) could breed with C(f) with no inbreeding issues. This would give aBC(f) and aBC(m)
AC(m) could breed with B(f) with no inbreeding issues. This would give aCB(f) and aCB(m)

Since there are two degrees of separation; A(m) could breed with aBC(f) with minimal inbreeding issues and create AbC(f) and AbC(m)
Since there are two degrees of separation; A(m) could breed with aCB(f) with minimal inbreeding issues and create ABc(f) and ABc(m)

ABc(m) and AbC(m) could then breed with AB(f) and AC(f).

This is how selectively breeding rabbits was(yes I used to do that, don't judge). You find a male and two females that have traits that you desire and breed them with two degrees of separation. Now usually when you're breeding animals...rabbits or not you want to add new blood every few generations or so or you will start having problems. However, that can be mitigated in this scenario by extrapolating this system out to 3 or 4 other females. If aBC(m) reproduced with D and aCB(m) reproduced with E. You would have three degrees of separation and that any extre degree of separation you can squeeze out would make humanity far more likely to survive.

Now, keep in mind that I'm not saying that you're not going to have problems:

The age of A by the time aBC(f) comes around to being old enough to have kids. He's gonna be like 54 by the time he bangs aBC(f) assuming that he was 18 when AB was conceived and 36 when AB reproduced with C(f) to create aBC(f). We can technically fix that by making the ages younger which would probably happen in an extinction-level scenario where there's only one male, but that's not allowed on the site. It also assumes twins although that's fairly rare. The twin thing can again be fixed a bit with more than a couple of females who can all be pregnant at the same time.

You are basically going to have to plan out the reproductive future of your denizens for literal generations....hundreds of years. So that nobody is stuck banging their half-sister. That is no easy task and assumes that everyone is going to go along with it and everyone in the future is going to go along with it.

You would have a genetic bottleneck. Genetic disorders which are normally recessive are going to be problematic. This is where genetic luck comes into play. You would essentially have to bar the people with obvious genetic issues from reproducing...otherwise up to half of the next generation could have the genetic problem. Then much more in the following generation. The problem is that not all genetic problems are visible and while certain genetic conditions aren't necessarily fatal. they could have a profound effect on future humans. Such as your heart bursting when you hit 30, or the aforementioned problems with cheetahs. These genetic problems would also occur several generations in (assuming they followed the plan) and originators of this hypothetical single-male line are all dead of old age. They may not know nor or care to stick to their ancestor's plan.

The best-case scenario is likely one where humanity survives with persistent genetic issues that makes life harder for them. The worst-case scenario would be losing the genetic lottery and getting a genetic disease that just wiped out most of a generation and then the next generation would likely be the last.

As far as the direct effects of inbreeding are concerned though, those can be mitigated. Inbreeding Depression will still happen, but the idea would be to drag out the effects of it gradually until the population is large enough and natural mutations can occur to begin increasing genetic diversity again.


Edit: It's called Linebreeding.

 

[Actiaeon]

Sorry, everyone, I've been taking a break; I needed to relax as the next addition is draining me.

As for the re-population issue brought up by Durzan, I have a plan; I've been working on it since the MC arrived at the colony. There are more humans on the planet than would be initially thought. You haven't met them yet because they are quite spread out. But some have made it down and already been living on the planet while it may seem that initially you and your survivors are all that is left of humanity. That you have to utterly re-populate by yourselves that is not true, technically, however, you are the only one who can save humanity in another way.

Have some hundreds of frozen human embryos, sperm, and eggs found among the salvaged supplies of the Apollo and the Aurora (This can easily be implemented in the main route, but I'd recommend using it in the route with more survivors as well)

I like this idea; it would be interesting to add something like that to the story.

Have a couple of support ships for the colony ships unexpectedly pop into the system and NOT be too significantly damaged. Have them carry a couple of dozen crew members apiece that survived the journey mostly intact, and maybe a few children as well (ya know, to jumpstart the next generation). These people would be last-ditch survivors of Earth.

That is the only one I feel could never happen. There is no way anyone from the Earth, that have not already left is coming to the planet.

You could make it work, but you would need a flow chart and a lot of genetic luck.
Say you had three specimens: A(m), B(f), and C(f).
A(m) would breed with B(f) to create AB(m) and AB(f)
A(m) would breed with C(f) to create AC(m) and AC(f)
AB(m) could breed with C(f) with no inbreeding issues. This would give aBC(f) and aBC(m)
AC(m) could breed with B(f) with no inbreeding issues. This would give aCB(f) and aCB(m)
Since there are two degrees of separation; A(m) could breed with aBC(f) with minimal inbreeding issues and create AbC(f) and AbC(m)
Since there are two degrees of separation; A(m) could breed with aCB(f) with minimal inbreeding issues and create ABc(f) and ABc(m)
ABc(m) and AbC(m) could then breed with AB(f) and AC(f).
This is how selectively breeding rabbits was(yes I used to do that, don't judge). You find a male and two females that have traits that you desire and breed them with two degrees of separation. Now usually when you're breeding animals...rabbits or not you want to add new blood every few generations or so or you will start having problems. However, that can be mitigated in this scenario by extrapolating this system out to 3 or 4 other females. If aBC(m) reproduced with D and aCB(m) reproduced with E. You would have three degrees of separation and that any extre degree of separation you can squeeze out would make humanity far more likely to survive.
Now, keep in mind that I'm not saying that you're not going to have problems:
The age of A by the time aBC(f) comes around to being old enough to have kids. He's gonna be like 54 by the time he bangs aBC(f) assuming that he was 18 when AB was conceived and 36 when AB reproduced with C(f) to create aBC(f). We can technically fix that by making the ages younger which would probably happen in an extinction-level scenario where there's only one male, but that's not allowed on the site. It also assumes twins although that's fairly rare. The twin thing can again be fixed a bit with more than a couple of females who can all be pregnant at the same time.
You are basically going to have to plan out the reproductive future of your denizens for literal generations....hundreds of years. So that nobody is stuck banging their half-sister. That is no easy task and assumes that everyone is going to go along with it and everyone in the future is going to go along with it.
You would have a genetic bottleneck. Genetic disorders which are normally recessive are going to be problematic. This is where genetic luck comes into play. You would essentially have to bar the people with obvious genetic issues from reproducing...otherwise up to half of the next generation could have the genetic problem. Then much more in the following generation. The problem is that not all genetic problems are visible and while certain genetic conditions aren't necessarily fatal. they could have a profound effect on future humans. Such as your heart bursting when you hit 30, or the aforementioned problems with cheetahs. These genetic problems would also occur several generations in (assuming they followed the plan) and originators of this hypothetical single-male line are all dead of old age. They may not know nor or care to stick to their ancestor's plan.
The best-case scenario is likely one where humanity survives with persistent genetic issues that makes life harder for them. The worst-case scenario would be losing the genetic lottery and getting a genetic disease that just wiped out most of a generation and then the next generation would likely be the last.
As far as the direct effects of inbreeding are concerned though, those can be mitigated. Inbreeding Depression will still happen, but the idea would be to drag out the effects of it gradually until the population is large enough and natural mutations can occur to begin increasing genetic diversity again.

Interesting.

 

[Actiaeon]

I've got a new poll out; please select up to 2 options. Answering it would help me out, I've got some plans in the works and would love to hear from you all as to what and who I should focus my efforts onto. Please be honest; this is also not just to focus on another character; I also want to know what character people are feeling attached to, therefore, who I am writing well. Since I need to know both, that is why it is two votes.

Thanks for your time.