The Finality of Fictional Worlds

2025-08-08 00:00:00 -0500

For many years, my friends and I have collaborated on a science fiction worldbuilding project we call Final Frontier. The setting is simple: it’s ten thousand years from the present day, and alien species have all banded together to form a Galactic Union.

We play TTRPG campaigns in this universe, where we get to interact and truly make our world come alive. We write short stories in this universe, where we can build lore and history for our would. Each of us has crafted many characters, species, planets, histories of species and planets, magic systems, wars, stories, and all the more. It’s something beautiful.

Because I’m such a nerd, I’ve been the main steward of a wiki that we keep up to document all our creations. It’s definitely not ALL of our creations for FF, as… I’m only one man. However, I’m deeply immersed in the world we’ve created. I’ve played in tabletop campaigns, and I’ve hosted tabletop campaigns. I’ve read short stories, and I’ve written short stories. I’ve drawn and seen a thousand art-pieces representing the characters and world. I’ve just been there for it all.

The scope of the Final Frontier world is effectively limitless. Anywhere in the galaxy is fair game, and species and planets are spread out until they eventually cross paths in a story somewhere. It’s so expansive, and everyone’s creations have a place. There are dozens of unique creations…

Wait… dozens…? That doesn’t seem right to me. Final Frontier is bigger than that.

We have 122 content pages on our wiki.

The other night I was lying in bed and the thought came to me: Despite all the years of effort and thought and passion we’ve put into our world… it’s still small. When I pause my imagination for a moment, take a step back, and see the true quantity of our work… it’s like nothing. You could peruse it all in an afternoon.

Of course, I know this. There’s no logical conflict going on in my head. Finite beings such as humans can only create finite things. We can only create something lesser than ourselves. Despite this, the thought rather disturbed me.

None of these people, places, stories, things are, in any capacity, real. But to recognize them all, laid bare without filling in details or giving any benefits-of-doubts, as empty husks wearing the skin of real things… it was harrowing.

In my imagination, Final Frontier is made up of much more than that.

But in reality, Final Frontier is made up of nothing.

And every fictional world is made up of nothing.

I’m not sure if that’s OK.

There’s no happy ending to this post, by the way. Just had a mini-existential crisis. Hope you feel better about it soon.