Revelation Space Thievery
Good artists copy, Great artists steal. Now, to be entirely fair, calling me a great artist is a bit of a stretch, but the sentiment is still relevant. Quite a bit of my worldbuilding is inspired from somewhere, but a certain literary universe holds the spot for number one in the amount of stolen stuff.
I love Revelation Space and its universe and related books, that's no secret (especially if you've interacted with me on the discord). It's my favourite series of books to date, and the very core of my world is very similar to it. It's why the world is hard scifi to begin with, and is also responsible for a number of elements in it.
So, for shits and giggles, I decided to collect all the ideas and details either inspired or stolen from the series.
Some spoilers for that series of books; Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, and to an extent, Chasm City and The Prefect (or Aurora Rising). Don't read forward if you're intending on reading those books, which I highly recommend you do.
The very term "human space", one I use liberally, is lifted from the first book, and the nature of it and how it works is largely as well. The abundance of orbital habitats and fairly disparate nature of human expansion is also a trait of the books' world.
This world of is fairly similar in technology to the Revelation Space series' world, though I set it somewhat later to make for a slightly better pace, I feel. Nanomachines, long tube ships, plasma weapons (and how rare they are), as well as the general feel of a lot of things, especially nearer to the rim.
Stringer is basically a discount Clavain. He takes some elements from elsewhere, but the throughline of an old, half-century old soldier with extensive augmentation who has something of a mentor role is all from Clavain.
The Captain is essentially, well, the character of the same name. More the later versions of the Captain, the one melded into his ship. They both are in control and essentially themselves are the ship, the ship being an interstellar trade ship with a fairly long history. They also both have an assistant of sorts, Kyra and Ilia respectively, though in my case, Kyra is the only other person of the crew.
Ochtotne Prime is very similar to Resurgam, being a half-terraformed planet on the edge of human space, and both the first locale of the series and a major one throughout.
Jett, to an extent, is similar to Yellowstone in being primarily inhabited by people in orbital habitats. It doesn't hold the same "center of human space" position, though.
Lanfal City has a fair bit in common with Chasm City, though so does New Suterr.
Memory of Opportunity's government system is directly lifted from the habitats of the Diamond Belt (and later Rust Belt).
Cyclers in general. Specifically interstellar cyclers, also including their crews, the mention of power struggles is a direct nod to the first book.
Style of names, from the The Orator of Ten Thousand Glorious Victories to the March of Profits (though that one is a Stellaris reference). Many ships have long phrases and sayings as names, a custom prevalent in Reynolds' books.
A decent few names reference the series among the many other things they reference, like the Quaiche, which references the character in Absolution Gap of the same name.
Modes are a near one-to-one copy of Ultras. The radical self-augmentation, the often distant connection with baseline humanity, and the prevalence on interstellar spaceships are all present in the books, most in Revelation Space.
Cyborg Fever was inspired not just by being realistic, but also a scene early in Redemption Ark, where Clavain overheats his head and passes out speeding up his mental processes in an emergency. The cooling methods, especially the fins on the head, present on Gvanhla and Kyra, are also lifted from Skade of the aforementioned book.
I will likely keep updating this list with stuff as I include it, if I remember of course.
I love the article name