This is a little background on the thinking behind Three Little Pigs (published back in April 2010) and Gone Fishing (published tomorrow, 30th April 2014). More precisely, I’m going to have a bit of a look at the world building as specific to these two stories.
Publishing Details
Three Little Pigs was published by Crossed Genres [External Link] in issue 17 of their original run. This issue is no longer available.
Gone Fishing is in Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction, published by Solarwyrm Press [External Link] and officially out tomorrow. The best way to get hold of a copy is to look through the shop links on Goodreads: [External Link]
The World Setting
The setting for the Three Little Pigs and Gone Fishing is my New Dryas universe. In terms of explaining that, here’s a quote from my World History post that might set things up a bit:
While the New Dryas ice only spreads over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere, it ties up a fair amount of the global fresh water. Things will get drier – more noticeably so in already delicate or marginal ecosystems. The influx of people into various countries will stretch resources. The initial wave of immigration won’t have a major affect on existing plans – such as sea-steadings near Australia and New Zealand – but the later influx from evacuation will lead to hurriedly formed colonies and later land grabs / local wars as large nations fracture and then collapse under the strain. The United Nations will collapse with them but the Commonwealth of Nations (the former British Commonwealth) will survive as just “the Commonwealth” – effectively a militia financed by business interests in an effort to keep trade flowing.
This is the basic breakdown of the world at the time these two stories are set but the finer detail is about a group of people who live, or are based on, a sea-steading.
Sea-Steading
Sea-steading is about taking advantage of International Law to create settlements, or provide services, outside of national waters. You can find out more – or at least start, by having a look at the Wikipedia sea-steading (or “seasteading” on that site) article here: [External Link]. There is also an organisation, The Seasteading Institute [External Link], which favours the idea of such places as settlements.
Although a fair amount of food production “on-site” is possible – fishing, farming onboard if enough space is available – it’s highly unlikely that a sea-steading could be totally independent of the modern economy. There is going to be a need for people, food and materials for repair, if nothing else, just as there would be on land but with greater difficulty securing it should communications or trade get cut off.
Putting The Two Together
With respect to the New Dryas version, not all sea-steadings would necessarily be outside of particular national waters as they are / were built for three reasons:
- Financial Enterpises – could either be inside or outside of former national waters, depending on the original company’s intentions. These were for trade or resource gathering such as fish farming.
- Resettlements – always within national waters as these were new cities to take an expanding population.
- The Stateless – always outside national waters as these were groups of immigrants who were either not allowed in to host nations or didn’t make it to land in time for the nation’s collapse.
The type basically shows how far along the process of fracturing the nations involved were at the time the sea-steading was started.
Given that sea-steadings are going to have needs that are difficult to meet – wood, metal, etc are going to be very difficult to secure without an onboard woodland, mine, or even a reclamation plant – the two stories set in this world are very much about scarce resources.
Spoiler Notice
If you want to talk about Three Little Pigs or Gone Fishing, please leave comments below. If you’re going to read said comments, be prepared for potential spoilers.