Making my introductory post after lurking for 4 years

[MBBM]

I guess I'll start off with some questions: 

1. Does anyone know or remember why Drexlerian nanotech was written to be developed as late as it is?

2. What led you to discovering this site? (I found it because someone brought up the unique non-humanoid aliens in the OAUP on the futuretimeline.net forums)

3. Are there any projects that are similar to the OAUP that you know of?

Asking these out of curiosity and because I want to put something engaging here. I really enjoy browsing EG articles in my free time, and I hope to get a little more engaged with the community!

[Worldtree]

welcome to posting on the forums



1. You mean "Does anyone know or remember why Drexlerian nanotech was written to be developed as late in the OA timeline as it is?", right? someone else will likely answer more extensively but , as far as i understand, essentially Drexlerian nanotech is very complicated and the people who are very familiar with nanotechnology here think that kind of technology will take much longer too develop than say, more optimistic people like ray kurzwiel would say. Also, narratively, making Drexlerian nanotech take longer to develop makes the early setting feel slightly more conservative and so the wildest transhumanist dreams don't happen all at once and the events of the technology timeline are more evened out.



2. I was searching for images of silicon-based life on the internet back in 2010 , and found OA, from what i remember. I wrote one article soon after then only made a few illustrations for a few years and just joined in on discussions. 



3. what do you define as "similar to OA"?

look under

Homepage- EXPLORE > Links and Extras >
or

Homepage- READ >Stories by Author > Spreadsheet of stories > Fiction Inspired by/ Associated with the Orion' Arm Universe Project

(at the bottom) most of this fiction is simply by people who participated in OA over the years though

----



Community-built, shared settings focused on transhuman space opera ?  



Homepage- Explore > Links and Extras > Other Space Operas and similar projects



Community-built, online Encyclopedia Galacticas? 



Settings that are similar , or which inspired OA (hundreds), or were inspired  BY this group, regardless of whether they are authored by one person or many, or whether they have been commercialized or not?



or just Community-built, Encyclopedia-centered shared settings with a non-commercial purpose, like the SCP foundation ?

[Drashner1]

Welcome to OA/the forums!

Regarding your questions:

1) The founders of the OA project were of a mind that a) the near constant treatment in the SF of the time of Drexlerian nanotech being something that would be going strong in the early 21st century (think 2030 onwards) was becoming boring and repetitive (also the focus of the setting was 8000 - later 10,000 - years in the future, so the exact dates of nanotech dev and most else in the early timeline, weren't thought to be something would care about). b) The idea of Drexlerian nanotech happening that soon was probably overly optimistic. That all said, there were various passing mentions in articles discussing the earlier timeline that spoke of nanotech use at a 'Drexlerian' level, although I think we've mostly cleaned those up by now.

In later years, we had new members join who had greater familiarity with the real life state of nanotech development, including one who did research work in the field. They were also of the opinion that the early 21st century nanotech explosion scenario was overly optimistic (to say the least), so that firmed up our thinking on that point, leading to further edits of the setting, and now here we are.

2) I was surfing the internet back around 2000 or 2001 and did a google on 'encyclopedia galactica' on a whim and the EG popped up in the search results.

3) Not anything that Worldtree hasn't already covered in his reply.

Hope this helps and once again - Welcome to OA!

Todd

[MiyuwiAuthor]

Welcome to OA! I discovered OA on a random day when suddenly I had the urge to google different types of planets. I found a random page which listed a type of planet known as Chlorine planets. This sounded interesting and I wanted to learn more about Chlorine Planets so I googled them and found the OA page on them. Then I realized that the page was fictional when it said that hundreds of Chlorine Planets have been discovered. And then I went to see what happened to Earth in this setting and learned that the setting was collaborative. And then I decided to explore the EG, read some stories, join the discord, and create a forum account.

Anyways, hope you enjoy your time here! ^.^