Iron Horizons: A Setting Primer

A Retrofuture With Modern Values

Diesel-electric engines propel massive steel ships across the great emptiness between star systems, haunted by rumors of star dragons and the possibility of discovering the defeated remnants of the Nazi Kolonialreich, while monks from all of Earth's religions work tirelessly in their terraforming monasteries to bring dead worlds to life for future human settlement, guarded by their warrior-monk brethren.

The need for petroleum drives oil companies to send scouts deeper and deeper into the heart of the Milky Way in search of worlds that can be profitably exploited and tramp traders work their way along the ever-shifting Diskward Marches to deliver food, water, mail, radios, and medicine to independent colonies and the Ship Clans carry the main trade routes from Terra to the newest colonies.

Terran governments, remnants from before the expansion into space, try to maintain the carefully negotiated peace, and their own power, across thousands of light years, while their distant dependencies chafe under distant rule and yearn to seize their independence. Border wars and trade conflicts erupt over control of the trade lanes, promising riches beyond imagining to the magnate who gathers the tariffs and privateers lurk at the edges of star systems in hopes of seizing rich merchantmen and evading the frigate escorts.

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What is Iron Horizons?

Iron Horizons is a multimodal worldbuilding project designed to support fiction projects and tabletop roleplaying games. It combines the aesthetics and philosophy of dieselpunk with the interstellar scale of space opera.

What are the current projects?

My current focus (as of 12/2023) is writing a small series of novellas following Roland O'Caroll and her exploits in the Kais Indepdence War. This is partially meant for publication, but primarily meant for me to develop my writing processes and habits into something that I can sustain into the future.
The secondary project is the creation of a tabletop role-playing game setting sourcebook. The specific game system remains unspecified, but I'm leaning toward either the Genesys system or the Powered by the Apocalypse system.

Is this the polished information?

Short answer, no.
The long answer is that my World Anvil projects are more like digital gardens than a published compendium, since I work in layers and spirals rather than straight lines. All material is subject to change and I will try to keep people notified of major changes. Nor have I gone through with a fine-toothed comb to ensure continuity is perfect. There are and will be many contradictions for a while until I am able to bring everything in order.

How should I start?

1. Right here! This primer gives you the big picture overview of the project, as well as a crash course in the world meta, and articles to get started with.
2. The next best place to go is the World Meta. It goes into much further detail on the ideas behind Iron Horizons, the goals I'm trying to accomplish, and the media that influenced the project.
3. Theory of Negative Nth-Dimensions: This one is perhaps the most important article. It's the foundation that all of the interstellar elements are built upon.
4. Kais Independence War: This one is very much a digital garden style article, being not entirely finished and only giving the broad overview. It's the primary focus of the novella series, so if you're interested in those, this can give you an fun preview.
5. World Codex: You may have noticed a small, floating menu on the left side of your screen. Opening it will reveal the various categories within the Iron Horizons Project. Articles are listed under categories, allowing you to explore them to your hearts content.
6. Join the Community: Feel free to stop by the Discussion Boards or join the Discord.

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Narrative & Thematic Foci

Narrative Influences & Styles

• Nautical Fiction: I deeply love nautical fiction, like C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian. I've drawn many of the worldbuilding elements specifically from those, including terminology, plotlines, titles, economics, and some of how technology functions. Expect many stories and content to focus on spacers, starship travel, and interstellar society.
• Late Medieval/Early Modern History: These transitional eras are also major points of interest for me. I've deliberately modeled the social structures on the frontier. The Hanseatic League is a particular inspiration of mine, which you have likely noticed if you've read the Kais Trade League article.
• CJ Cherryh: What? A Specific Author? A shocker, I know! But Cherryh opened my eyes to a new type of space opera that has always been my favorite, but I didn't realize. I'm especially a huge fan of Merchanter's Luck and Forty Thousand in Gehenna, and Downbelow Station is a masterpiece. There's a gritty sort of feel to the books, but also a touch of the romantic and the larger than life that just pulls me in.

Thematic Foci

• Anti-fascism: Look, Iron Horizons is going to be pretty leftist in its political perspective. Fascists of their various stripes are most of the main antagonists. Most of it is also fairly post-colonial and pro-labor in view.
• Humans are Space Orcs: Yes, coming from Tumblr. Now, granted this comes more into play much later on in the development phase, but humans are tough and ferocious when we choose to be.
• Ordinary People in an Extraordinary World: So, I really want to keep the characters very grounded, well-rounded, and believable. Granted, they're out exploring a vast and wondrous galaxy, but they're still people. It's a dichotomy between this and the Humans are Space Orcs that may have some challenges when balancing, but I think it will be good. 
• The Future Is In Our Hands: The future is not preordained, nor is there some grand, cosmic force dictating everyone's destiny. We create the future by our actions, or inactions, every single day,

Development Phases

Phase One

• The current phase- it's primary focus is on establishing the overall foundation of the world and its basic timeline skeleton.
• The main writing project is the novella focusing on the Kais Independence War. So, limiting the focus to two sectors (which is still like... 50ish star systems?). I want to keep this one focused as I work on my project management and writing processes.
• An additional goal will be to begin establishing a community around Iron Horizons and my broader writing career.

Phase Two

• This focus will be on the timeframe around the Great Colonial War, so a little earlier in the timeline, but on a much larger scope. Earth governments and their colonies will play a much larger role in this phase. The Iron Horizons version of WW2 will also get quite a bit more attention as part of the prelude for this one, I think.
• The writing focus on this one will specifically focus on the tabletop RPG sourcebook. Ideally, the novellas will either be published traditionally or independently at this point, so I can tie those into the marketing and use those funds to commission artists and other professionals necessary to make the sourcebook as good as possible. 
 

Phase Three

• This is the last phase that I've considered and sketched out so far, and this is the one where Iron Horizons gets big, and the rest of the space opera tropes begin to develop. This one will focus on the the rest of the Milky Way, its history and everything beyond human-inhabited space, as well as the history of the human species and its future.
• The primary writing focus at that point will be a novel I've been calling The Pilgrim's War, which will be much longer and more complex than the novellas. I think this will also be the continued support for the campaign sourcebook, including prewritten adventures, campaigns, and greatly expanded gameplay options.

Using this version of the tone/mood alignment chart, Iron Horizons is best described as Knightcore or Knightdim.
Knightcore:

Hanging on a thin thread between hope and despair; given enough effort, groups of indviduals may be able to make a dramatic effect on the world. Even if true permanence is just beyond reach.

Knightdim:

The line is blurred between criminals and leaders as those in power are pushing ever further towards oppression. Life for a commoner is hard and getting harder -- key figures among the community stand as the final word; occasionaly banding together to suppress any opposition of their collective power.

What do I mean by dieselpunk?

According to its Wikipedia article, dieselpunk is "a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retrofuturistic technology and postmodern sensibilities." 

At its core, Iron Horizons is an Alternate Future History. What if the first stages of the Space Race had happened prior to World War I? How would the Interwar period have been different if there were Lunar, Martian, and asteroid colonies? What if the atomic bomb had never been invented and the war forced to its conclusion through conventional means? Would there have been a difference in the establishment of the U.N? What about the postcolonial and independence movements? How would the pre-WW2 balance of power look? Then what it would look like several centuries in the future? 

The underlying principles of technology have remained the same, but dramatically improved beyond what is possible in the real world. As a result, most of the technology will rely on mechanical and analog means, along with organic materials, and nonautomated industrial production. As you imagine things, picture them as something from a movie about the 30s or 40s. 

As for the postmodern sensibilities, film noir is a fairly sizable influence on Iron Horizons, both aesthetically and thematically. As a whole, Iron Horizons is critical of authority, hierarchy, tradition, and grand pronouncements about the inevitable path of society, recognizing that human nature is neither inherently evil nor inherently good, but constantly in flux and shaped by the current circumstances. 

Iron Horizons combines these two components into a future in which humanity traveled to the stars, but brought all of our baggage with us, and we are haunted by our past and facing a fundamentally uncertain future. 

Beneath the light of distant stars, Iron Horizons will hopefully show us that we cannot escape our own humanity and that we are responsible for the labor of building the future.

What do I mean by space opera? 

Unlike dieselpunk, space opera is a very well-known genre, so I won't need to spend quite so much time describing it and explaining what I mean. Broadly speaking, space opera is a large-scale, high-concept genre of science fiction that focuses more on adventure and romance (in the medieval sense) than on exploring the impact of technological development. 

I will openly and proudly admit that I am primarily focused on the human and societal element of science fiction. Technology gives me the aesthetic and thematic resonances, but I am most interested in the characters, their choices, and the actions that derive from those choices. 

There is certainly a touch of the melodramatic to Iron Horizons. Its stories take place on massive scales (albeit not as massive as certain high profile space opera franchises) and pits ordinary humans against extraordinary circumstances. Yes, it involves conflict and interstellar wars, but these are the result of conflicting human emotions and passions rather than good-vs-evil. To quote A.K. DuBoff, "True space opera is epic in scale and personal with characters. It is about people taking on something bigger than themselves and their struggles to prevail."

And yes, there are more traditional elements of space opera that will make appearances in the future (and in the past), but those are not my initial focus. Until then, there should still be plenty of starships, interstellar intriuge, political machinations, and cutthroat economics to keep you happy.