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[PinesintheHollow]

Welcome!
Orion’s arm is entirely contributor created since 2000/2001 when some writers started collaborating on a message board with the original goal of making a book or two. We have written and published two books of short stories so far , and there’s plenty more available for free on the fiction page. The majority of what folks create so far though has been the worldbuilding itself, in the encyclopedia galactica , which you’ve read a bit of!

The majority of the setting is focused on the mind children of earth itself , but as you’ve seen there’s definitely aliens!

Here’s the story of the early years
https://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oa-...earlyyears

In terms of recommended reading: A basic thing to understand about the Orion's Arm project is that it is primarily made up of entries in the 'Encyclopedia Galactica' a fictional knowledge compendium existing approx 10,000 years in our future and describing the history, culture, technology, habitats, and inhabitants of that distant time. So when it comes to gaining an understanding of the Orion's Arm setting, I'm initially going to recommend some articles that will help you come up to speed on the setting more quickly. Specifically:

Galactography

Culture and Society

Technology

Sophonts

The History and Science sections, as well as the wider EG in general (accessible via the six main topics listed here or just by searching different letters of the alphabet) are definitely also worth exploring. Be warned that it's not unusual for new folks to get 'lost' in the EG for weeks at a time.

In terms of fiction set in the Orion's Arm universe, we have two collections of published stories and a novella and short story available on Amazon and Smashwords, as well as numerous stories available for free on the OA website. Out of those, my recommended works for getting a feel for the OA setting would be:

A Day in the Life of a Bureaucrat

A New Way

Dirty Hands

Festival Season

In the Garden on Eden

A Minor Demonstration of Power

Dragon's Teeth

Infanticide

Keeper of the Faith

Under the Looking Glass

Also, more generally - the Traveler's Notes short stories are often descriptive of specific places or ways of life in the settting.

Note that the timeline of the OA setting is some 10,000 years long so different stories can take place in different time periods, sometimes separated by hundreds or thousands of years.

Hope this helps and once again - Welcome to OA!

Thank you for all of the information and references! I will definitely be looking into these. I have already gotten lost in some the articles for a few hours earlier today so I am excited to jump down the rabbit hole! The god-like super AI sound super interesting to me so I am looking to start there!