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Does the Encyclopædia Galactica have any "meta" articles?
I.e. ones describing its history and the various forms that it can take within the OA setting? (Not how it came to be in RL.)
I tried searching for some but was unsuccessful. It'd be nice if its home page at
http://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oaeg-front included links to such material in addition to the minimalist blurbs that are there.
Selden
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This topic comes up every few months, we kick it around and no one writes it. Like any gap in the project if there are no canonical reasons why something shouldn't be there then the only reason it isn't is that someone hasn't done it yet.
The usual consensus we have is that the EG we see is a tiny fraction of it all. In-universe the EG would be a mega-multi-format, intelligent document. It could adapt itself to present information differently, on the fly, for different people. When Alice looks up a question she may be presented with a text article with a few pictures. Bob's version could be a video style documentary. Claire may get an interpretive opera and David a pure-logic form that downloads directly to his mind.
OA Wish list:
- DNI
- Internal medical system
- A dormbot, because domestic chores suck!
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We could do with one, if only to display your excellent image.
The real Encyclopaedia would probably be vast- if it has encyclopaedic articles on every one of the hundreds of millions of inhabited planets and megascale habitats, it would be a very large undertaking indeed. Perhaps the Encylopaedia updates itself from local databases whenever someone wants more detail about a planet near the user - otherwise the data would be out-of date for most of the habitats in the Terragen sphere at any one time.
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The EG entry on Ken Ferjik (the planet) mentions that it is the home of the EG Institute, but that seems to be about as meta as we get on this at present.
If you'd like to take a shot at putting an article together, by all means, please do so
Todd
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OK, let me think about it a little. I have a few ideas about the topic.
Selden
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I love, love the self-referential article about the Enciclopædia galactica in the EG. Published 05 octobre 2016. I love metafiction.
And the images of the article were good also.
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Thanks for the kind words. I keep hoping to get back to it, incorporating suggestions people have made, but other projects keep interrupting.
Selden
