NOVEL NEXT Announcement & Information
Hello everyone!
After almost a year of writing and editing, the rewrite is finally complete!
2 chapters will be posted a week on Mondays and Thursdays until book 1 has been fully posted. The original (which I shall refer to as the 'First Draft') will remain uploaded as its separate volume.
For any newcomers, this story takes place in a universe where humans evolved upon an ocean world.
These humans were landlocked upon their native continent, making their way to the second industrial revolution before discovering other landmasses across the world.
Book 1 covers the journey of the first successful expedition to these foreign lands, which are inhabited by many strange and alien creatures.
For returning readers, I ended up making quite a few changes, as well as completely rewriting the first 120k words or so (with some significant changes to the rest)
The biggest worldbuilding changes are (spoilers for new readers):
The dragons now know about humanity through flotsam that managed to drift across the ocean through the ages. As such, humans are seen a sort of alien cryptids with abilities to create otherworldly constructs.
The story now also covers the events leading up to the first landfall covered in the original story.
I could post an exhaustive list of changes at the end of this volume, if that's something that people would like to see.
This story of mine was inspired by works like The Martian and Project Hail Mary (By Andy Weir), and the Temeraire series (By Naomi Novik).
VikasRao on Deviantart has also been a great help in providing and inspiring ideas for this story, and their work on speculatively biology (featuring realistic dragons) is insanely detailed.
I wrote this story for several reasons, but mostly in an attempt to cover a more interesting and sensible first contact scenario. I also wanted to create a "magical" world without magic – reality can be stranger and far more interesting than fiction, after all.
And finally, special thanks to my beta readers for finding all my errors!
Reference information
Earth:
| Alt-Earth (In Real Units) | Earth | |
| Mass | 4.7725×10^24 kg | 5.97×10^24 kg |
| Radius | 6371 km | 6371 km |
| Gravity | 7.85 m/s^2 (80% Earth gravity) | 9.81 m/s^2 |
| Day | 24 hours | 24 hours |
| Magnetic field | 15,000 - 55,000 nT (Slightly weaker than Earth's due more iron and less nickel within its core) | 25,000 - 65,000 nT |
| Distance from sun | 1.1 AU (163.480 million km) You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Perihelion: 161,807,881 km Aphelion: 167,307,471 km | 1 AU (148.93 million km) Perihelion: 147,098,074 Aphelion: 152,097,701 |
| Intensity of Energy received from Sun | 1124 W/m^2 | 1360 W/m^2 |
| Atmospheric Pressure | 1.5 atm, 152.0 kPa | 1 atm, 101.3 kPa |
| Atmospheric Composition | 79.63% Nitrogen 18.31% Oxygen 2.045% Argon 0.015% CO2, H2, & trace gasses | 78.08% Nitrogen 20.95% Oxygen 0.93% Argon 0.04% CO2 & trace gases |
| Average Temperature | 16.1°C | 13.9°C |
Moon:
|
|
Alt-Moon |
Real Moon |
|
Mass |
1.62% of IRL Earth or 9.79689745 × 1022 kilograms |
1.2% of Earth or 7.34767309 × 1022 kilograms |
|
Diameter |
3,814 km |
3,474.8 km |
|
Orbital Period |
35 days, 1.3 hours |
27 days |
|
Average Orbital Distance |
422,100 km |
384,400 km |
Scientific Units:
| Alt-Earth | Real Units | |
| Measurement of Length | Same as Real Unit, as it was initially based on 1/10,000 of the distance from equator to north pole.
Redefined using a physical bar of metal.
Plans to be defined as 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum are in progress. |
Distance light travels in 1/299792458 of a second |
| Measurement of Mass | 1 liter (dm^3) of water at max density, higher atmospheric pressure means 1 alt-kg is greater than 1 kg, but by an insignificant amount. NOTE: Mass =/= weight Since gravity is 80% earth gravity, 100 kg on a scale will show 80 kg. 100 kg is still 100 kg on this planet, it just weighs less. | Defined in terms of planck constant |
| Measurement of Time | 1 second = 1/31556925.9747 of a year Other units of time are divided the same as Real Time | Time it takes for caesium 133 atom, to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times |
| Measurement of Temperature |
Like the metric system, this world uses the freezing point of water as 0° while the boiling point is 100°. However, the thicker atmosphere causes the boiling point of water to be a little higher, meaning their 100° is actually our 111.91°C. The freezing point of water is not significantly affected by the difference in atmospheric pressure. |
Melting Point of water @1 atm = 0°C Boiling Point of water @1 atm = 100°C (Currently defined by Kelvin, which is defined by the Boltzmann constant) |
Maps:
