Best fictional Universe?

[pandasaw]

The marvel universe or Mass Effect.

 

[anANGRYkangaroo]

Magic the Gathering. There is SO much lore and thought and art to it, there is some really amazing stuff.
EDIT
Damn, ninjad

The universe we're currently inhabiting right now. Of course it's fictional. Real life would presumably make some kind of sense.

Okay, okay, being serious:

The Magic: The Gathering multiverse (once called Dominia, but that term seems to have fallen out of use now. There's Dominaria, but that's one of the central planes within it) is pretty sweet and nicely varied, even if the story's been flagging a bit ever since Apocalypse (Phyrexians again? Really?)

The world of Gurren Lagann is cool simply because you literally can do ANYTHING with sufficient force of will.

In terms of great places to live, though, I'd have to go with Lunar (from Lunar: Silver Star Story, Eternal Blue, etc.) Most of the sentient inhabitants are pretty good-natured, medical treatment for pretty much any condition is free and as easy as touching a statue, unlimited cash is available simply by beating up hostile monsters, the primary religion actually encourages drunken revelry, and I could study magic and hang out with dragons.

 

[DaJoW]

40k and (old) World of Darkness are pretty much ties for first for me. 40k's diversity and the whole bunch of interesting races is very interesting, but oWoD's bleakness and depressing themes appeal to me a lot. And who can resist Malkavians?

 

[weatherfn]

I'm going to geek out because I just re-watched the trailer for the new season, but I'd have to say the Avatar world. (The bending one, not the blue-skinned one...) I'd still love to be an Air or Firebender!

As for games, It's a tie between Elder Scrolls due to it's scale, Ratchet and Clank for it's color and destructibility, Okami for it's beauty, and Super Mario RPG for it's...nostalgia.

 

[EBonhawk09]

Definitely Mass Effect for me. Star Wars is pretty cool too though.

 

[Verlander]

Yeah, except for the fact the Seanchan, the Aiel, the Shadow, the Whitecloaks, and pretty much everyone else is out to get you thanks to massive racism, fear, and ignorance...sure.

What? I'm confused by this statement. Are you saying that massive racism, fear, and ignorance is an unreasonable thing?

I'd argue that racism is an unreasonable thing.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Dungeons and Dragons(all of the 3.5 universes). That or A song of Ice and Fire has very cool and resized world.

I just finished reading A Game Of Thrones and I have to say the level of thought and detail was amazing. Is the rest of the series that good too?

For me... well the 40k universe is badass. I'm glad I don't live in it though. Welll... maybe on one of the nicer Tau sept worlds, providing it doesn't get eaten by Tyranids.

 

[WonderWillard]

It's hard to pick a "best" universe, since there are so many different and equally well thought out 'verses, but I'd have to go with Star Wars, Mass Effect, Halo, and A Song of Ice and Fire. Star Wars has a ridiculously fleshed out expanded universe, and is probably the biggest. Mass Effect has an incredible amount of depth to it, with a lot of detailed and unique alien races, not to mention the Reapers' cycle of extinction. Halo has an epic, galaxy-wide scope to it, especially after reading the new Halo: Codex novel. Seriously, that book opens up the Halo Universe tenfold; there is so much we still don't know about the Forerunners and even the Precursors. And A Song of Ice and Fire honestly reads more like a historical fiction, than a fantasy series, because of all the people, places, and events both past and present in the series.

 

[tobi the good boy]

Zoids, Giant robotic animals that you can tame/create and pilot for fighting competitions.

 

[AMAZED]

the mass effect universe, my all time favorite

 

[oktalist]

Deus Ex
Stalker/Roadside Picnic
The Longest Journey
Asimov's Foundation
Star Trek
Stargate
Doctor Who
Firefly

Tried not to make it just a list of my favourite works of fiction, but those that have the most interesting or compelling universes. Of course there is a lot of overlap between the two.

 

[CrashBang]

There are so many universes I'd love to live in. Firefly, Star Wars, Discworld, Mass Effect, Star Trek, but nothing, and I mean nothing beats Pokémon. The Pokémon universe is absolute bliss. Fun and merriment from the day you're born to the day you die. Ahh, heaven

 

[Jaloopa]

The universe from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. It's an incredibly well thought out universe with varied worlds, truly alien extraterrestrial species (rather than bipedal humanoids with different coloured skin), the contrast between the more traditional, religious Adamists and the more radical Edenists with their genetically modified telepathy... I could go on.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The universe of Berserk (the manga).

I've never seen a world that felt so fleshed out, yet avoids all the pitfalls of other Tolkienesque fantasy worlds (no fake languages, no geographical mapping).

 

[8bitlove2a03]

Stop right there, criminal scum! Nobody claims there's a better fictional universe than TES on my watch! It's a world where sword mages have sunk an entire continent Atlantis-style, where the sun and stars are rips in the fabric of hell which divides the universe from the realm of spirits, where mages have (on more than one occasion) caused events strong enough to break linear time, and where demons from Snow Hell thaw out each summer just to have another go at The Thousand Monkey Isles.

 

[TornadoFive]

I enjoy the amount of effort that's gone into the detail in the Mass Effect backstory. Usually in Stories with aliens, the aliens are no more than humans with weird faces/bodies/languages. You rarely see the differences in the things that we accept as standard. The culture, the military, the throught processes of the people, the effect their world had on them as a species. It's amazing.

I also like the world in the Wheel of Time universe. It too has a staggering amount of detail in it. Religions, cultures, dress, quirks of personality and speech, political factions, all of which very from region to region.

 

[Urgh76]

Really? No one on the front page said Equestria yet?

I'd love to live out the rest of my days there :3

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Fantasy? Right now I'd say Discworld, because it has had me in stitches since I started reading. It's like Douglas Adams for fantasy.

For Science Fiction, its a tossup between 40K for brutality, and Star Wars for sheer volume.

 

[ElPatron]

Dune.

Harry Potter and Warhammer for runner up.

 

[powernade]

The Halo Universe hands down. The aesthetics of every culture and the tech (old and new) is all fascinating to me.