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From A Grain of Sand
World-building a Planet Centuries and Light Years Away
Worlds can be as big as we want them, whether as small as a vulnerable moment or vast and expansive as the universe.
I can’t stop thinking about Ithaka. It is a town on the planet Minos which was colonized by Earth’s billionaires in secret. Only, it didn’t stay that way. The people who paid, were swindled, or clamored to get to the planet rebelled against the ruling class and demolished the systems they built, which looked a lot like ours. Their formation of government and society underwent multiple iterations of breakdown until they came upon a system that took the best of what served the people.
It is not simply about non-competition or large scale behavioral health intervention or no circulating currency, but a community that finally decided what elements would help members thrive. We are always so tied to the categorization of a system into something we recognize. Social democracy, democratic republic, communist… on Minos, the government is simply Community. Rule of law and businesses support and uplift the interests of the people, so there is need to adjust policy, but no room to hold on to what doesn’t work.
It occurs to me that the planet I imaged sounds like a utopia, but inside, I understand that no place can be. The Minoans already know this and have decided to make peace with their history and strive for better. They continually choose each other and center efforts on balance between creation and consumption.
Around the time I had started building the planet Minos itself as background to the short story, Elle Griffin of The Novelleist began her exploration of utopias in the progress writing her second book, Oblivion. It felt a bit like simultaneous inspiration, as I’d just finished Island by Aldous Huxley. Island informed some of the society’s bedrock historical context which was woven into the story as scaffolding in small and large ways.
Island is structured in long monologues detailing the people and practices on the island Pala. The residents espouse a public consciousness centered on being present, mentally clear, and free to explore. They are deeply philosophical, but also knowledgeable about psychology, using these schools of thought to recognize issues…
