I'm glad you found this idea interesting. I really hope this ends up becoming some kind of story.
>>2 I don't exactly remember, but I think I came up with the idea when thinking about falling very long distances into complete darkness, like when it looks like it's never ending. Another thing I did find interesting, is what the planet would look like if there were holes the size of oceans, and covered large areas of the world, both small and large scale. You would see deserts with holes in the ground everywhere like small puddles or larger pits, but none of these holes would have a bottom. I found the idea of the earth being hollow interesting, and then figured that gravity would always end up having some kind of landmass in the center exist, so why not have people live there?
Also, now that I think about it, the premise of this story is pretty much the reverse of Journey to the Center of the Earth, where they start in the middle and aim to climb to the surface.
I guess, this isn't really an idea for a story, but more of an idea for a world, as my focus has always been on designing the world in an interesting way, and how it would function. Things like characters and the plot I can't say I have much more for, apart from the vague things I mentioned earlier.
I don't know how big a deal this is, but I never mentioned it yet so why not. One thing I did think would be an interesting idea in the center city, would be having shops that sell supplies and things for climbing, but more specifically, weights. Maybe I've got my science wrong, but I think in the center of the earth the gravity would be weaker, so some people who live there wear these weights so that they will be more used to living on the surface, and the climb up to the surface.
But some more things to think about when it comes to this world, is how they go about protecting the city from things that fall from above. Literally everything that falls from the surface will end up on the smaller sphere in the center of the planet. People and supplies will often have parachutes, but just bits of earth, and waste deposited would be very dangerous. I don't know if they will make it so that certain areas are designated for this, or if they live underground in some places, or if they just risk it and people get injured a lot, but it is an important factor.
Now that I think about it, the path to the surface would probably go through this area where things are dropped intentionally, so that could be one of the reasons people often don't do it, because you could easily be crushed.
It does make me wonder if there should be a group of people to brainstorm and figure out this world together, because the more I think about it, more details and factors need to be figured out, because it's like we're creating our own world. Like is everyone going to be the same race, or will people be different races, because anyone can fall from the surface, no matter where they are, so it's not like there's going to be only one race of people there.
Are we going to have other planets/aliens? The reason I'm throwing this out there is because the planet could end up having a metal frame, of a certain shape, and everything that isn't over this metal will eventually fall over time. It could be like a self-fulfilling prediction some aliens bet over, as to what shape the planet would be or something. I doubt this kind of story would go this way, but I found the idea kind of funny.
And what about technology? Is there a reason why people can't just create vehicles and fly to the surface?
The way I see it is that there will be different arcs of this story. The first would just be in the city, maybe different stories about what it's like there, and to introduce the characters, and lead up to when they decide to go. After that, there would be the journey to the surface, which might have multiple arcs. Maybe there will be a point where all travelers stop, because they reached the furthest it looks like it's possible to go. It could even end up being like a little city or something, halfway to the surface. They would then, somehow, make it past that point, to where people from the surface have access to, the lowest surface point, where there could be a city there, waiting to see if anyone actually ends up making it there, but also maybe hiding from other cities different laws and rituals to send people down the hole. They would then travel on the planets surface, looking to find their birth cities, and find out what happened to them, and their families, maybe each getting separate arcs. It depends how long we would want the story to go, but there can be other groups of travelers, people who fall and have to travel up from the center city, changes to the world, and things like that. And if we wanted to climb highers, we could have floating masses of land in the sky, and even go sci-fi and have other planets or something, if we wanted to, maybe even somehow accessible by climbing or something.
That's just a rough overview of how I pictured it, but it's obviously way too early to be thinking that far down the track, especially since I most likely won't end up being the one to write it. The idea is that it's going to be really long, both in story, but also in the depth of the world, so it will take a lot of time to figure out all of the details.
One last thing I wanted to add, is an idea for a character/theme I had. I don't know how weird it comes across and sounds, but I like the name Nomlas. I got the idea from a manga I read, which I honestly forgot what it was called. There was a line in it that went along these lines "They say a salmon always finds their way back home", which is a great theme for this story for obvious reasons. (also Nomlas is Salmon backwards, just to clarify).
So, it does make me wonder, how does writing a story as a group work? Would it just be one person actually typing it all, and the rest all come up with ideas and characters and stuff, helping to figure out all of the details.
Would anyone be interested in making a group to work on this story/setting?
And just to clarify, I will always be following this thread, and read every reply. I'm not going to forget about it, or ignore it or anything.