Beyond Kuiper: World Building
How astrophysicists, NASA, and a little thing called Youtube played a part in building the universe of Beyond Kuiper!
Another day, another Writer’s Take.
Today, I’m a day late not because I was lazy, well, laziness is in the eye of the beholder, but because I went to see Oppenhiemer yesterday. It was without a doubt, one of the greatest films to ever be made. I know, you're drooling for my take, so am I, which is why I am going to be writing it for… September 6th!
It’ll be a Barbierhiemer special, as I promised. But as much as I want to go into it, and I am simply blown away by every aspect of the film, I will save it for my take… Ok, ok, OK! Damn, you guys are needy. If I were to do a brief summary here, it would be to lucidly inform you all that the film was the greatest character study on the most important man to ever live.
“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this, he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity”
We are talking about the man that gave us the power to enrich our lives with near limitless energy and instead, built a bomb to swell a nation's pain. Truly a visceral experience.
Ok, I will stop for now, because if I keep going, Ken will start a Beach Off…
How to Build a World
As I was saying, today, we are going to dive into the formatting and creation of World Building documentation. I was going through some documents for Beyond Kuiper, as John and I finish up Book 2, The Voyage Of The Nomad. I know it’s 3 years pushing on 4 years later, but these books are HARD to write, the science we pour into them is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, or been a part of otherwise.
So, as I was going through documents, mainly to fact-check some of the storylines, I stumbled upon our Planetary Guide, and I thought this week, it could be fun to share something that hasn’t really been seen by the public, unless you bought the extended special edition of the book in the limited second printing run, and is something that almost no one would need to see. But everything in this document is critical for the adventure we wrote.
What you are about to explore comprises original planet design by the incomparable, Luigi Aime. Luigi has designed planets for Lucasfilms, and Disney at large, John and I were lucky enough to get a small sliver of his time to bring the ideas of these planets to life. Within these pages, we calculated the actual mass and radius relative to Earth, and the quantity of moons the planet has. We also showed on a galaxy-spanning map where the planet sat relative to the rest of the galaxy.
But why do we need this?
The importance of turning your fictional world into reality can’t be overstated. If you do not believe it is real, why should anyone else? The old adage about performers is that you don’t see the 10,000 hours they put in to be able to have the right to stand up on stage and perform for your entertainment. As a science fiction world builder, this holds true too. John and I spent more than 10,000 hours creating the world of Beyond Kuiper, from the planets to the stargate systems to how matter and energy interact differently than our physics understands as a Type .5 Kardashev civilization.
Curious about what the Kardashev scale is?
This video is an incredible resource for understanding the science behind it.
Yes, one could say “But Matt, does EVERYTHING need to have this extensive world built behind it?” and the truth is probably not. But I can tell you that without a world behind you, your scalability and your understanding of your “world” will be thin, and uninteresting. So while you don’t need one to succeed, nearly all science fiction space sagas that do, have one. Star Wars’ planetary system is one of the most impressive compositions of star mapping on the internet, and yes, I'm including NASA in that statement.
Bold Cotton, Bold.
If you want to go down a DEEP rabbit hole on Star Wars planets, you can start here.
Back to the Kuiper Planets. When you're writing story there is nothing more important than having a, let’s say 9th grade history level understanding of the entire construct. Without this, you are pulling ideas and stringing them together, but with it, you're scribing historical records. And that's the whole game right there. When you're writing a science fiction story you want to be able to write what feels like an historical recount of the story you are creating.
And to do that, you need as many “Real” resources as you can imagine. For a space-faring story, nothing is more important than understanding where planets, species, and beings sit on the map.
So when you dive into the guide below, keep in mind that you're reading actual history, fictional history, but history all the same.
Because without fictional history, your story is just that, a story.
But who's to say, with enough world-building, your story isn’t just a story, it’s history.
Just history from your imagination.
Why don’t you ask Asimov or Lucas, they shared their imagination with us all in a way that, if you immerse yourself fully in it, is as real as the charred skin from a lightsaber could be. Or, better put, just ask the people of Trentor how they felt about the devastation of the Star Bridge.
Stay Curious, and Keep Writing.
Matt Medney
Beyond Kuiper Planetary Guide
Herø Projects, Gungnir, and other musings…
I wanted to take a moment during our intermission here to shamelessly and directly promote my two companies. Gungnir Entertainment, a genre-focused publishing company with best-selling titles from yours truly hitting shelves nationwide this Fall. With books focused on classic sci-fi ideas like “What does it mean to be human” and “is the bible right?” “Adventures throughout the stars” are just a few of the prompts for the books you can dive into with Gungnir. Gungnir’s website will launch this summer, and you can stay up to date on the forthcoming titles on my Instagram, @matthewmedney, or at my author page on Simon & Schuster.
And then there is Herø Projects. The Perennial leader in custom comics and animated services, Herø is a state-of-the-art creative studio that has worked with talents such as Floyd Mayweather, Shaggy, Nghtmre, and brands such as Remi Martin, Live Nation, and Rolling Loud. If Branding through storytelling isn’t your thing you can check out our original titles, the Onyx line with books such as Stable, Remnant, and Best Selling Comic The Red. To learn more about Herø Projects visit us at