You'ld almost certainly run into gradations of water-adaptation. People who lived on or near the waterways would have as much water as they needed, while people who lived further and further out would have adjusted to less and less of it (as well as adjusting to more and more extreme temperatures.) Moving out from the waterways would get to be very uncomfortable very quickly, and the people who lived out there would likely both know how to identify the water-fat on sight and care about the difference. As you move out from the civilization clustered around the Waters (and the occasional pockets that have been pushed out either by tech or by oddities of weather patterns) life gets harsher, and the people get harder and more sharply pragmatic.
Thoughts and questions...
- The crash has got to have happened hundreds of years ago at least. Even with the "wizard on the mountain" effect of the scientists, it'll take that long to reboot. Why has no one from home come looking for them in that time?
- Speaking of the wizard on the mountain, the scientists *would* have most of the raw information necessary to rebuild to a high-tech society, in their brains if nothing else, in a great many fields if not across the board. Scientists are like that. If they had any chance of doing so, once they realized what was going down, they *would* have put as much as they could think of in permanent or semipermanent storage media - everything that they couldn't take advantage of straight off. Scientists are like that, too. If we're in the early 1900s equivalent, then people are firm believers in advancement and development as Good Things, and have been for at least a little while, and have enough spare resource production to have a significant number of people devoted to developing technology full-time. Why, then, are we not seeing a sudden huge leap as all of the remaining ancient information is absorbed and applied?
If we go realistically, their 1900s-equivalent isn't going to be anything like our 1900s. The renaissance was born of the dark ages, which were born of the fall of Rome, which was born of Rome itself. WWI was born out of a form of diplomacy that took its shape directly from the ideas of feudalism and monarchy - of nations driven by the honor of individuals, and family ties. How much do you care, and how deep into the weeds do we want to go on this? I know that I am fully capable of joinging in on a projects that take a premises like this and spin them out into stuff with as much detail as the Shining Spiral or Teikoku Kagekidan: 1940, and likely the same fate. I don't think that's what we want, though - it's great for practice with worldbuilding, but you never get to see the end. What level of realism and detail are we looking for? Heck, for that matter, what kind of story are you trying to write? There's a certain point where background becomes irrelevant, and that point varies dramatically on the scope and intent of the story.
- as a sidebar question, are there any set pieces you particularly want to include? If you want castles or airships or cannons or whatever, then the world can be bent to accomodate them, but in some cases it may not be trivial. If nothing else, the distribution of chemistry ingredients and metals may well be rather different.
Thoughts and questions...
- The crash has got to have happened hundreds of years ago at least. Even with the "wizard on the mountain" effect of the scientists, it'll take that long to reboot. Why has no one from home come looking for them in that time?
- Speaking of the wizard on the mountain, the scientists *would* have most of the raw information necessary to rebuild to a high-tech society, in their brains if nothing else, in a great many fields if not across the board. Scientists are like that. If they had any chance of doing so, once they realized what was going down, they *would* have put as much as they could think of in permanent or semipermanent storage media - everything that they couldn't take advantage of straight off. Scientists are like that, too. If we're in the early 1900s equivalent, then people are firm believers in advancement and development as Good Things, and have been for at least a little while, and have enough spare resource production to have a significant number of people devoted to developing technology full-time. Why, then, are we not seeing a sudden huge leap as all of the remaining ancient information is absorbed and applied?
If we go realistically, their 1900s-equivalent isn't going to be anything like our 1900s. The renaissance was born of the dark ages, which were born of the fall of Rome, which was born of Rome itself. WWI was born out of a form of diplomacy that took its shape directly from the ideas of feudalism and monarchy - of nations driven by the honor of individuals, and family ties. How much do you care, and how deep into the weeds do we want to go on this? I know that I am fully capable of joinging in on a projects that take a premises like this and spin them out into stuff with as much detail as the Shining Spiral or Teikoku Kagekidan: 1940, and likely the same fate. I don't think that's what we want, though - it's great for practice with worldbuilding, but you never get to see the end. What level of realism and detail are we looking for? Heck, for that matter, what kind of story are you trying to write? There's a certain point where background becomes irrelevant, and that point varies dramatically on the scope and intent of the story.
- as a sidebar question, are there any set pieces you particularly want to include? If you want castles or airships or cannons or whatever, then the world can be bent to accomodate them, but in some cases it may not be trivial. If nothing else, the distribution of chemistry ingredients and metals may well be rather different.