Overview and general OOU info

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Destructionator
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Overview and general OOU info

Post by Destructionator »

Contents:
  1. Overview of the setting
  2. General information
  3. Posting guidelines for the rest of you
  4. About the author
  5. See also
Overview of the setting

The setting is a mostly hard sci fi and generally realistic universe where the science helps shape the story. It primarily follows my alien people (the A'millians) from their early history up to their modern day where their legacy spreads across two populated star systems.

I'm also going to discuss the 'Expanded Multiverse' in here, which includes some less realistic stuff (chief among them being hopping to parallel universes) done primarily for cross-overs and non-canon stuff, but also for some fun in exploring other possibilities I left behind in the main storyline. I might go back and explain my structured magic system in there too, despite it obviously not being remotely realistic nor a necessary plot device - the EM is where the random fun goes.

Of course, I can't discuss A'millian history without also discussing the story of the people of the other star system: the humans of Earth. We follow parts of their civilization through the 1,900 years from first contact with the A'millians to the setting's present day.


Since the technology details and large scale history comes from what I think is likely extrapolation from real science, you'll often see me use phrasing like "this is probably what would happen", and I'll be revising stuff all the time as I run new numbers or change my assumptions. This is nothing to be alarmed about; the details change, but the core storyline doesn't (which is told primarily through the eyes of the author insert, and A'millian who lived through the majority human era, whose experiences don't really depend on the technology or scale of the setting).

I'll be discussing out of universe reasoning at least as much as in universe reasoning.


General information

I write things from both an in-universe and out of universe perspective depending on how my mind is rolling as I write it. If I switch off in the same post, I'll usually mark the switch with either brackets [this is out of universe commentary] or an OOU: marker. If I'm writing out of universe then suddenly switch to in universe, I might not mark it, but it should be rather obvious anyway.

I also meander quite a bit when writing stuff (I don't really do any editing here), and sometimes stop posts short if I need to leave for some reason. I can take some time to follow up on posts - I've actually taken a full year before to get around to finishing up a post.

I don't abandon anything, but can procrastinate for a long time. If I am taking too long on something though, feel free to leave a comment in the thread telling me to get around to writing it.


Posting guidelines for the rest of you

Basically, I'm an attention whore, so please, post as much as you want. Start new threads and we can discuss any random topic - ask me questions about their history, culture, technology, biology - anything you want, post something you'd like to see added (I will take user submissions!), etc.

I like even short comments on stuff in their threads, so don't hold back. I don't mind 'me too' and one liners. Also, thread necromancy is not a problem here - I'll probably necro my own threads when I do revision, and comments are awesome, regardless of how old the stuff is.


About the author

Right now, I (Destructionator aka Adam D. Ruppe) am the sole author of this universe, but like I said above, I'll take user submissions (that I'll likely edit a bit), and of course, give proper credit.

I can't take full credit for everything here, since I have several inspirations from other people. However, all the writing, unless specifically told otherwise, is by me, and most the artwork will be too (especially if it looks really bad :P ). I tend to mention who inspired me in a section, and from whom I take some ideas as I write it as well, so keep your eyes open for those names.

I try to keep to generally realistic science (and mark where something isn't realistic) and accurate maths, but I'm no expert in really anything, so everything here may be wrong.

Any errors presented here are entirely my own. If you would like to correct me or argue a point, please do so! I'm always open to new information and doing revisions.


See also

My blog: http://libriumarcana.com/blogs///index. ... g=8&cat=24
I haven't updated this in a while, going back to the fact that I can procrastinate for years or months, but the discussions in there can help you see what shaped the setting, from some earlier discussions on magic tech right up to shaping it into harder science.

The ASE reference pages: http://arsdnet.net/ase/reference.cgi/
These pages include many tiny articles that help to flesh out some final details, leaving out most the discussions on how things came about. Most the information in here will also be copied into threads over here, but the reference pages might offer a different view of things updated at a different time.

The original OZ forum for this 'verse http://omniversezero.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=553
Eventually, everything from there should be copied over to here, but I might not be able to copy/pasta all the comments and debates, so still good to keep this link around.


I'm probably going to mention the non-canon Phoenix War adventures and OZ World at some point in here too. They are multi-player games set in a parallel universe that were just awesome and, in the case of PW, spanned the revision from soft tech to hard tech, so includes lots of trails as to how that took place. I'll maybe dig up links as needed for them.



All right, let's have at it!
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Destructionator
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Re: Overview and general OOU info

Post by Destructionator »

Another thing I'm going to do a lot of is talking about the history of the universe, from an OOU perspective. This has been in my head, or even on paper or the Internet, in some form or another for a long time now, and a lot of ideas have come and gone, some of which are interesting, and others... well, not so much.

There are lots of reasons things here exist: most are primarily science, but there are also historic reasons (OOU history), and even just arbitrary reasons, like my tendency to name characters after people I used to know IRL. I'll openly admit the A'millians exist in great part due to an arbitrary reason, and will eventually explain that in one of those OOU posts.

Knowing the OOU history might help explain some of these, or it might give you some fun ideas you might like to run with yourself. Of course, it might also just be plain boring; I make no guarantees.


Similarly, another thing I do is collect a lot of optimistic views in here. If I see an interesting article that talks about the future, I'll probably post it. It might influence me later, but even if it doesn't, these things are fun on their own. I like to maintain a generally optimistic view of the human future, and reading articles like that can help. I also have some negative ones though, assuming they at least discuss solutions - even in an optimistic future, there are going to be bumps along the way - bumps that will be probably crossed with science and technology, which is a major theme of the setting.

Then you have some articles and essays I'll write on things that barely seem to make any sense to be here, but will help see what everyday life for normal people in this optimistic future may be (for both humans and my aliens - though, I'll the latter may seem weird at times :) ). Such as the sex in freefall links I posted on OZ (and will eventually dig back up to be reposted here).


So a whole lot of fun (and maybe not so fun) stuff to look forward to from the OOU, and that's not even getting into the universe itself yet :P .
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Destructionator
Posts: 836
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 4:33 pm
Location: Watertown, New York
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Re: Overview and general OOU info

Post by Destructionator »

On the OZ copy/pasta: I pasted some into here for reorganization later, but what I did with most the long threads was save as them to my local computer for my own reference, but probably won't completely copy paste them here, but I may put them up on my own website for posterity (the debates, when they happened, were invariably interesting, just a pain to copy/paste over).

I want to do a different thread structure over here than the random assortment I used on OZ - a deeper structure, where one thread is dedicated to many long articles rather than just one. So that will take some reorganization work, but I've already kicked it off with the old kingdom culture thread (which will grow a lot).

I might also rewrite a number of the articles, especially older ones, using the original text as a reference, but still in fact rewriting the whole thing incorporating new revisions in a clean manner. For example, the old UKA thread, while still generally accurate, didn't mention the MGI at all, since I didn't even think about it until I was writing the Queen Anna thread (Which was awesome and I'll copy paste it even if it is a pain in the ass).

So yeah, expect lots of new stuff, hopefully better organized, and in a more 'traditional' format for a lot of them - real articles rather than random OOU rambling that just happens to be related to the 'verse.



Lots of fun, but lots of time. But, do read the stuff as it is posted - the rewrites should be quite interesting, even if (or perhaps especially if) you remember the content of my old articles. And of course, comment - even if you just want to nitpick, at least it lets me know I am being read :P
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
User avatar
Destructionator
Posts: 836
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 4:33 pm
Location: Watertown, New York
Contact:

Re: Overview and general OOU info

Post by Destructionator »

This universe has been in my head one way or another since I was in elementary school. The main factors that remain continuous from then to this day are few - it has always focused around the author-insert (who has been an alien (same planet as the 'verse today though) for as long as I can reliably remember; for some reason, it never even occurred to me to have him be a normal human), and a handful of the other characters have been there since the beginning, at least in name, but most have been heavily revised since then; not much of the characterization or backstory for them remains the same. It has also been a sci-fi with carefully explained technology (though scientifically absurd in most the years) with some fantasy tossed in. Some planets from the old remain into the new as well, but again, their characteristics and backstory have been heavily revised, so aside from the names, little remains the same.

In its earliest years, it was heavily based on Star Wars. Trench runs down an approaching Death Star were commonplace. Not much later, it transitioned to be more Star Trek like, then Phantasy Star stuff got mixed in and soon it became a conglomeration of things from several universes. It has only been the last few years that it has transitioned to generally hard science.

While its roots as a kind of Mary-Sue Star Wars child's fanfiction are long, long gone, some minor influences back from those beginnings remain. As I said above, the characters and places from the beginning are still pretty much around, but more than that, there are some other subtle homages mixed in. The most obvious one is the author-insert's first starship assignment, ASV Falcon, is named after the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. Slightly less obvious ones are that the A'millian nation is a kingdom - Princess Jessica was one of the original characters, and you can't have a princess without a king. (Well, you can, but I didn't know that back then.) Thus, a king was added, and boom, kingdom. The details have been entirely changed since back then - the old idea for that government was simply unworkable, but the basic part remains.

So you can kinda thank George Lucas for that. Though, even if it didn't start that way, I probably would have made it a kingdom anyway. I'm actually pretty much sold on monarchies being a good idea in the real world.

Speaking of the Falcon, its disaster story has been there for a pretty long time too, added in the early years after the transition to more Star Trek stuff from the Star Wars stuff. But originally, its problem was caused from battle with the Koreallians (btw, named for a real world friend of mine - the similarity to the Star Wars planet is a coincidence) during the first war, and the problem was solved by executing the Picard Maneuver against a passing Koreallian cruiser and then using the Corbomite Maneuver to get them to surrender a subspace radio to call for help. Now, it was a complete accident solved by smart people thinking up technical solutions. Like most everything else in the story now.


Well, I got to go, but will probably write up more here at some point later.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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