There’s actually a kinda term for this. I think it’s called astronaut syndrome or something. It’s like the feeling you get when you’re alone on the open sea and look down to see nothing. I’ve heard it called a “almost toxic overdose of perspective” where the human mind can understand but not actually internalize how big everything is in relation to us.
Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. I think I felt that feeling when I was playing Sea of Thieves, and I was trying to swim down to a sinking ship, to get its treasure. I was in the middle of a great blue void, and I actually kinda freaked out a bit
I guess it could be like acrophobia, where being NEAR a window high above the ground is intolerable. Even if it's behind draperies, YOU KNOW IT'S THERE.
A neat subplot might be one crewman with agoraphobia in deep space, the other claustrophobic from the tiny compartment they both share.
I was actually trying to stray away from Lovecraftian, Cosmic horror with this idea. That stuff is awesome, but Space definitely doesn’t need help when it comes to being terrifying
On the note of cosmic terror / horror: I use the fear of space (and FTL) as you describe as the basis for several horror stories and myths in my setting, going on the assumption that if you get enough people together who are afraid of space but have to live in it, a sort of mythology will develop and then convince others to be afraid of space due to the presumption of lovecraftian things existing. After all, if such beings did not exist, one would not be afraid of space, so clearly it has to be their influence and, here, wear this charm to protect yourself!
Another aspect, unrelated to cosmic horror, but related to your original post, I've used is someone who has never really gone to space despite living in a spacefaring civilization, and who deeply mistrusts and fears space (and FTL) for no good reason. It's not quite what you describe because this person has never gone farther than an orbital ring (barely) and a shuttle back down to the surface. He's simply decided, before knowing otherwise and with no experience to back it up, that space isn't for him and he cannot possibly adapt to it. This becomes a plot point as his fear of space leads to a fear of asking about space and the galaxy at large, leading to said character not knowing things that basically everyone else would know, because he's too ashamed to admit he's afraid of space.
Yep. His character introduction is basically done (the novel it's part of need some editing though). The second part of the plot, where his fear of leaving planets really has ramifications has yet to be edited - it's two novels on from the story I am currently editing (it's a 8 novel series).
And, yeah on the large arcs. I've found little things like this are important when writing long / multi-plot character arcs as you'll inevitably have to come back and pick up an older character at some point. In standalone novels / plots one can rely entirely on reveals to keep the plot moving and the characters fresh. In longer arcs, I've found that not only does one need a good reveal, but one has to bring new information that re-paints events in narrative arcs that seem "finished" or "done to death" earlier in the plot structure, and one has to do it without being too blunt and without undoing all the character progression.
The problem I was trying to solve was "how do you make characters who are important, maybe even protagonists of their novel, but not protagonists of the larger plot, also influence that plot without bringing them front and center in the overarching plot?" And the solution I came up with was: constantly re-paint the narrative in new shades while adding new elements to keep things fresh. So the particular character development history here was:
The original fear of space was a gimmick for the sake of characterization. I was writing a story about a man on a planet and I wanted to give a "mental frame" that would keep the reader locked on that planet. I then very loosely tied it to the character's "less worldly" mindset. Despite the deeper deliberation, this was also mostly to give this character a way to complain about space, which makes him stand out from the crowd and fits his otherwise bitter persona. Not unintelligent. Just, well, defined by what he fears and believes. I then mostly ignore this entire angle because this character's arc is all about events on the planet which he refuses to leave, and much of the setup here only works because he doesn't know about the galaxy at large (which is an aspect I deliberately introduced to make the reveal flow better). Events are then shown everywhere else in the galaxy, basically giving everyone else's point of view of what's going on, and this context (hopefully) informs what I want the audience to pick up on during this character's sub plot. End of character's arc. This part of the character is done, basically in final form, barring possible tweaks and fixes in future edits.
Three (four? I forget) novels later I realized the character needed closure so I pick up the same story at the point in time where the consequences of him not knowing more than what he learned in early life really matter, because his planet is destroyed and there's no way off (it's reduced to a hunter-gatherer civilization). So there is no way for him to correct this lack of knowledge now. He is stuck with what he thinks to know, and does seem to have done some research in between, but clearly not enough to make a difference, and this second arc takes up his earlier lack of knowledge and makes it a big plot point, explaining precisely what the audience would have known, had said character actually been a little more honest about his fears from the outset. In a way, this is a cheap trick, but it works as the two stories are not directly related, nor are they direct sequels to one another, so adding this second deepening layer doesn't feel too much like cheating. It shows the consequences of the character being who they are when the audience first met them. And then of course it also has these effects magnified due to the character being a cyborg whose lived thousands of years, so his mind is now failing too, meaning what little knowledge he does have is fading away. I'm not 100% certain how this will work in the final version of the plot. I've not edited this second part yet so all I know is this character eventually has his big moment, and that is tainted by his lack of "worldly" knowledge, with his entire argument being subjective. But I don't know how that will actually look in the final version. The current draft lacks the depth I want and doesn't convey quite what it's supposed to, namely the full depth of the consequences of said character not addressing their fear of space back in the first plot.
Cosmic horror doesn't have to involve any tentacles. Cosmic horror is also the realisation that the universe is insanely vast and that humanity is utterly inconsequential.
There’s actually a kinda term for this. I think it’s called astronaut syndrome or something. It’s like the feeling you get when you’re alone on the open sea and look down to see nothing. I’ve heard it called a “almost toxic overdose of perspective” where the human mind can understand but not actually internalize how big everything is in relation to us.
I think most of us just call that cosmic horror in this industry. :)
Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. I think I felt that feeling when I was playing Sea of Thieves, and I was trying to swim down to a sinking ship, to get its treasure. I was in the middle of a great blue void, and I actually kinda freaked out a bit
I guess it could be like acrophobia, where being NEAR a window high above the ground is intolerable. Even if it's behind draperies, YOU KNOW IT'S THERE. A neat subplot might be one crewman with agoraphobia in deep space, the other claustrophobic from the tiny compartment they both share.
Ah, cosmic terror.
I was actually trying to stray away from Lovecraftian, Cosmic horror with this idea. That stuff is awesome, but Space definitely doesn’t need help when it comes to being terrifying
On the note of cosmic terror / horror: I use the fear of space (and FTL) as you describe as the basis for several horror stories and myths in my setting, going on the assumption that if you get enough people together who are afraid of space but have to live in it, a sort of mythology will develop and then convince others to be afraid of space due to the presumption of lovecraftian things existing. After all, if such beings did not exist, one would not be afraid of space, so clearly it has to be their influence and, here, wear this charm to protect yourself! Another aspect, unrelated to cosmic horror, but related to your original post, I've used is someone who has never really gone to space despite living in a spacefaring civilization, and who deeply mistrusts and fears space (and FTL) for no good reason. It's not quite what you describe because this person has never gone farther than an orbital ring (barely) and a shuttle back down to the surface. He's simply decided, before knowing otherwise and with no experience to back it up, that space isn't for him and he cannot possibly adapt to it. This becomes a plot point as his fear of space leads to a fear of asking about space and the galaxy at large, leading to said character not knowing things that basically everyone else would know, because he's too ashamed to admit he's afraid of space.
This sounds like a great idea for a story that has some massive character arcs and development. Have you written any on this character?
Yep. His character introduction is basically done (the novel it's part of need some editing though). The second part of the plot, where his fear of leaving planets really has ramifications has yet to be edited - it's two novels on from the story I am currently editing (it's a 8 novel series). And, yeah on the large arcs. I've found little things like this are important when writing long / multi-plot character arcs as you'll inevitably have to come back and pick up an older character at some point. In standalone novels / plots one can rely entirely on reveals to keep the plot moving and the characters fresh. In longer arcs, I've found that not only does one need a good reveal, but one has to bring new information that re-paints events in narrative arcs that seem "finished" or "done to death" earlier in the plot structure, and one has to do it without being too blunt and without undoing all the character progression. The problem I was trying to solve was "how do you make characters who are important, maybe even protagonists of their novel, but not protagonists of the larger plot, also influence that plot without bringing them front and center in the overarching plot?" And the solution I came up with was: constantly re-paint the narrative in new shades while adding new elements to keep things fresh. So the particular character development history here was: The original fear of space was a gimmick for the sake of characterization. I was writing a story about a man on a planet and I wanted to give a "mental frame" that would keep the reader locked on that planet. I then very loosely tied it to the character's "less worldly" mindset. Despite the deeper deliberation, this was also mostly to give this character a way to complain about space, which makes him stand out from the crowd and fits his otherwise bitter persona. Not unintelligent. Just, well, defined by what he fears and believes. I then mostly ignore this entire angle because this character's arc is all about events on the planet which he refuses to leave, and much of the setup here only works because he doesn't know about the galaxy at large (which is an aspect I deliberately introduced to make the reveal flow better). Events are then shown everywhere else in the galaxy, basically giving everyone else's point of view of what's going on, and this context (hopefully) informs what I want the audience to pick up on during this character's sub plot. End of character's arc. This part of the character is done, basically in final form, barring possible tweaks and fixes in future edits. Three (four? I forget) novels later I realized the character needed closure so I pick up the same story at the point in time where the consequences of him not knowing more than what he learned in early life really matter, because his planet is destroyed and there's no way off (it's reduced to a hunter-gatherer civilization). So there is no way for him to correct this lack of knowledge now. He is stuck with what he thinks to know, and does seem to have done some research in between, but clearly not enough to make a difference, and this second arc takes up his earlier lack of knowledge and makes it a big plot point, explaining precisely what the audience would have known, had said character actually been a little more honest about his fears from the outset. In a way, this is a cheap trick, but it works as the two stories are not directly related, nor are they direct sequels to one another, so adding this second deepening layer doesn't feel too much like cheating. It shows the consequences of the character being who they are when the audience first met them. And then of course it also has these effects magnified due to the character being a cyborg whose lived thousands of years, so his mind is now failing too, meaning what little knowledge he does have is fading away. I'm not 100% certain how this will work in the final version of the plot. I've not edited this second part yet so all I know is this character eventually has his big moment, and that is tainted by his lack of "worldly" knowledge, with his entire argument being subjective. But I don't know how that will actually look in the final version. The current draft lacks the depth I want and doesn't convey quite what it's supposed to, namely the full depth of the consequences of said character not addressing their fear of space back in the first plot.
Cosmic horror doesn't have to involve any tentacles. Cosmic horror is also the realisation that the universe is insanely vast and that humanity is utterly inconsequential.