Now, what did I just wander into... No way.......

[Drashner1]

Yes Sir! I wouldn't have it any other way. This is is said in the spirit of sharing this, already really mind bending, experience with others. I try to find ways to directly give credit within the narrative, whenever possible. I sometime do it in subtle ways. For example, the character is living homeless and the woods because they liked the book Into the Wild. I also picked the title, Into the Stars, because I liked the title concept of into. I pay homage to it within the text by having the character refer to themselves as a Supertramp. Something that Krakauer reported. 

Sounds like you're coming into writing with a good attitude when it comes to other people's work

Exactly what form this takes with regard to OA is something it's probably too early to discuss just yet since I'm not entirely clear yet on how you envision using OA content/ideas/terms in your writing (or if you envision that at all yet - or if things are far enough along in your writing for you to know one way or the other yet).

Funnily enough, I grew up maybe 50 miles from where the events of Into the Wild took place and much of the movie was filmed in my home town. Which makes watching the film a slightly surreal experience tbh

But these are all just dreams for right now. I have not even introduced my provolve into my story, let alone finished the book and gone through production. Thank you for making it make sense to me and being so supportive. I can't wait to learn more and try my hand at a short story for your universe. Where is the best place for me to start if writing for you is the direction I want to go?

Hm. I think the biggest goal if one is wanting to write in the OA setting is to become very familiar with that setting - particularly what we do and don't allow based on OA Canon. OA is pretty strict about following its Canon, which primarily includes following the laws of physics as they are currently understood in real life. That can preclude a number of common SF tropes (Ex: Our 'ascended' transapients are physical beings of superhuman intelligence and therefore capability - not living energy or the like such as depicted in most SF such as Stargate SG1). We are also very committed to an approach that might best be summed up as 'In OA, the bad guys can shoot straight'. The trope of 'The Stormtrooper Academy of Aiming' does not exist here - quite the opposite in fact.

Anyway - Getting back to the issue of becoming familiar with the setting: A common method used by many members is to just go spelunking in the EG for a few weeks. Seriously, based on personal experience and the reports of other members it is not uncommon for new folks to spend a lot of time - sometimes weeks - just reading EG article after EG article and following hyperlink after hyperlink and discovering new things about the setting. This in turn may lead to questions posted to the forum, which we then answer, which may lead to more discussion or ideas or another dive into the EG. Doing this isn't required by any means, but it does seem to be a common way that people get familiar with us (and from some of your earlier comments may be something you are doing already).

Getting a bit more focused on specifics, however. I'd recommend reading the following pages:

Introduction to OA page - Read the Statement of Purpose on this page and then look at the list of Additional Links down the left side of the page. Read the Illustrated Primer, Canon, FAQs, How to Contribute, and Copyright and Submission pages. Before starting and as you go along, please note the following:

a) The How to Contribute pages - particularly as they pertain to fiction - are a little out of date and will likely get updated sometime in 2020. As such, don't take what you read there as set in stone and we should probably have a conversation about that page once you've read it so I can update you on any changes in how we do things in this area. Just post something to this thread or another (if appropriate) or PM me when you're ready to have that discussion.

b) The Copyright and Submissions pages are written very formally in contract speak and can be intimidating/confusing. Again, after you've read them, please let me know and we can have a conversation about what they are actually saying. It's a lot simpler than how the page makes it sound.

Ok - moving on from there:

Read the six main topic pages of the EG (in any order) - LINK

Five of the six (not the History page, which currently works a bit differently) - provide a sort of high level overview of how things work in the OA setting. The History section is the timeline and covers 10,000 years of history. Feel free to jump around in the timeline or read it straight through or something in between. The main takeaway is that as a potential author you have 10,000 years to play with and set stories in if you are so inclined.

As a quick disclaimer - 4 of the 6 main topic pages were updated last year. History and Science haven't been done yet and when or if they will be isn't clear atm. They both work a bit differently from the other four. Point being that those two pages may read a bit differently from the rest.

Finally, I'd suggest going to our fiction section and reading some of the stories there. This should give you a feel for how we tend to depict the setting, although there is no single official way of doing that. Nor do we really want one

IIRC you've already purchased After Tranquility and so have (or will be soon getting) a whole batch of OA stories that are representative of the setting. For some additional reading, some of my personal favorites from the fiction section (that also IMHO help paint a picture of the OA setting) are:

A Day in the Life of a Bureaucrat
A New Way
From the Shadows
Festival Season
In the Garden on Eden
A Minor Demonstration of Power
Under the Looking Glass

Please note that the stories have been written across a 20 year period and may not always line up with our current take on things. Feel free to ask questions all along the way whenever clarification is needed. Note also that the above suggested stories are intended to help bring you up to speed on the setting and there are plenty of others that are also a wonderful read that I just haven't listed here - but feel free to read other things in the fiction section as well!

Finally finally - Never be afraid to ask questions on the forum. Part of what we are here for is to help people wrap their heads around OA - it's kind of a big and complicated place, but a lot of fun to play around in, once you get the hand of it

Hope this helps,

Todd