Star Army's Welcome Message said:Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding... Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site.
The Star Army Wiki said:Star Army® is a creative community of role-players, writers, and sci-fi fans that have been world-building our own unique setting since 2002.
There are a lot of ways to create a setting and build fictional worlds. The wiki's 13,000+ articles and this forum's 365,000+ posts are a magnificent testament to that. Our "role-players, writers, and sci-fi fans" make the great SARPiverse and its content possible and, whether prolific contributors or occasional enjoyers, all do it in our own unique way.
There's a spectrum of extremes between roleplaying and writing that everyone falls into. "Spontaneous or planned RP?" is a preference we're all asked to tell upon an (optional) introduction. Some players enjoy telling stories of great heroes and others enjoy the simple pleasures of an everyman. And when it comes to the wiki, some writers are all about managing fleets and making spreadsheets while others create beefy tech articles to give rich detail to even the smallest bolt on a starship — and then others still find satisfaction in archiving what's already been written here on the forum and are great interpretative custodians of the lore.
So, as the title says, what is your favorite way to build a sci-fi setting? Specifically this sci-fi setting, the Star Army Roleplay Universe? This question isn't because of anything needing to be reconciled or changed, nor is it a suggestion that things should lean more in one direction or another. There's no poll or up/downvotes here. Because the site's Staff has made it clear in Star Army's two-plus decades that all sorts of worldbuilding is welcome on Star Army. But rather, it's a question worth being asked so that everyone has the opportunity share what has worked for them because perhaps outlining your ideal method somewhere out-of-character will inspire good works in others so that the setting can continue to grow for 20 more years.
++++++
As for me, I find myself at a mid-point between adversarial roleplay against a GM and pure writing. Which is to say that I like a thread or plot arc to be planned out with major beats and moments agreed upon in advance while the journey to those moments is a collaborative writing experience between all involved. And I enjoy writing larger-than-life heroes, be they starship royalty or unknown shadow warriors, because even the hardest sci-fi has room for such characters (just like how many such exceptional individuals can be seen throughout real life history). Beyond that, it's important for me to be immersed in a plot. It can be hard to keep focused when I'm not typing about someone with a whole wealth of life behind them, either roleplayed over the years or just some simple pre-RP notes. Whether a plot I'm participating in leans toward hard or soft sci-fi doesn't particularly matter to me because references to technology serve the story rather than define it.
On the wiki, I'm a big lover of detailing unique parts of a larger whole. This is why I'm so into making really extensive unit articles or updating histories for the Star Army's bits, such as Legion 777, SAINT, or the Third Fleet (and creating the Ninth all the way back in YE 30). I've got an RPG background like most of us do, but I've also got a bigger wargaming background, so particularly find pleasure in making things like my Legion. It's like painting the details on a Warhammer miniature: my Space Marines have bone white armor with blue purity seals, and my Rikugun soldiers wear bits of red on their Mindys to respect their samurai heritage.