01-13-2025, 05:46 AM
I discovered Orion's Arm through the comments of drum n' bass videos such as this one. I had COVID at the time and was feeling a bit down but then I read the comments explaining where the art in the videos originated and when I found out that the universe takes the form primarily of a wiki I was hooked! I've always been a kind of cheater when it comes to science fiction/fantasy stories, preferring to spend hours getting lost in the labyrinth of links on all the various wikis rather than reading the actual books. So given OA just embraces the wiki format, it was perfect. It had been years since I spent days and weeks lost in a setting such as this one.
Well if I had to say where OA deserves a lot of credit its that the setting at least tries to up the scale over most sci-fi settings, which tend to find the "trillions and quintillions" numbers a bit too daunting to tackle or visually represent. OA stretches the imagination as one tries to get a handle on how living in such a universe might be perceived by a baseline human such as myself. Even if we can never truly "take it all in" so to speak, it's nice to have some fiction that makes such a solid attempt.
While listening to the Shadow Era tracks (as well as many others), I also noticed how I felt deeply nostalgic, but like many of the commenters on some of the weirder drum n' bass stuff point out, the nostalgia feels like its for a future that hasn't happened yet... A few commenters have mentioned how the music and images remind them of how the future felt back around the turn of the millennium, when the internet was new and exciting and it seemed like technological breakthroughs in things like gaming could still be felt with each successive generation of console or CPUs/GPUs, etc.
Much of OA's art reminds me of my middle school days when Myspace was a thing and wacky, aesthetically-chaotic internet profiles were in vogue (later to be replaced by the more functional, albeit blander platforms like Facebook, for instance).
I knew there was something to this "future nostalgia" feeling that is so pervasive in this scene, so I was surprised to find that a sub-section of "Y2K Aesthetic," (as well as Y2K Futurism) titled "Silicon Dreams" on the Aesthetics Wiki features a lot of OA images and many of the same YT DnB tracks that I listen to frequently. Furthermore, a lot of OA's visual aesthetic reminds me of The Mind's Eye and subsequent CG-render films that likewise captured the sense of excitement and awe that computational technology was inspiring as we headed for and surpassed the year 2000.
This is all a long-winded way of saying OA ended up filling a niche within myself that I felt was sorely lacking when I discovered the universe.
The Gigaverse is one of my favorite articles. I love how to touches on different modalities of being as one moves toward the Far Realms, which to my mind is also quite a psychadelic point-of-view.
Anyways, pleased to make your official acquaintance on the forums. I've lurked and posted on the Discord a bit, but wanted to post an introduction here.
Thanks!
- CHN
Well if I had to say where OA deserves a lot of credit its that the setting at least tries to up the scale over most sci-fi settings, which tend to find the "trillions and quintillions" numbers a bit too daunting to tackle or visually represent. OA stretches the imagination as one tries to get a handle on how living in such a universe might be perceived by a baseline human such as myself. Even if we can never truly "take it all in" so to speak, it's nice to have some fiction that makes such a solid attempt.
While listening to the Shadow Era tracks (as well as many others), I also noticed how I felt deeply nostalgic, but like many of the commenters on some of the weirder drum n' bass stuff point out, the nostalgia feels like its for a future that hasn't happened yet... A few commenters have mentioned how the music and images remind them of how the future felt back around the turn of the millennium, when the internet was new and exciting and it seemed like technological breakthroughs in things like gaming could still be felt with each successive generation of console or CPUs/GPUs, etc.
Much of OA's art reminds me of my middle school days when Myspace was a thing and wacky, aesthetically-chaotic internet profiles were in vogue (later to be replaced by the more functional, albeit blander platforms like Facebook, for instance).
I knew there was something to this "future nostalgia" feeling that is so pervasive in this scene, so I was surprised to find that a sub-section of "Y2K Aesthetic," (as well as Y2K Futurism) titled "Silicon Dreams" on the Aesthetics Wiki features a lot of OA images and many of the same YT DnB tracks that I listen to frequently. Furthermore, a lot of OA's visual aesthetic reminds me of The Mind's Eye and subsequent CG-render films that likewise captured the sense of excitement and awe that computational technology was inspiring as we headed for and surpassed the year 2000.
This is all a long-winded way of saying OA ended up filling a niche within myself that I felt was sorely lacking when I discovered the universe.
The Gigaverse is one of my favorite articles. I love how to touches on different modalities of being as one moves toward the Far Realms, which to my mind is also quite a psychadelic point-of-view.
Anyways, pleased to make your official acquaintance on the forums. I've lurked and posted on the Discord a bit, but wanted to post an introduction here.
Thanks!
- CHN
![[Image: Gaylien1.png]](https://www.orionsarm.com/im_store/Gaylien1.png)
