greetings, people. greetings and salutations.

[smithofbexar]

Hi Travis, Welcome to OA!

One of the many hats I wear around here is editor of the OA ezine, Voices:Future Tense.

If you have any stories set in the OA universe that you'd like to do, I'd be very interested in discussing them with you

Beyond that, if you have any questions or concerns regarding any aspect of the project or setting, please don't hesitate to ask. And like Rynn says, feel free to contribute to any existing threads or start new ones as the spirit moves you.

Cheers!

Todd

drashner1,

in the timeline of the OA, how many critical junctures would you say there are? for example, in actual history, i would say there is the bottleneck event/out of africa migration, the creation of agriculture (this is probably the single most important event in human history, and maybe always will be), the invention of writing, metalworking, the creation of trade networks in the ancient imperial era, the invention of the square sail array, the discovery of the new world, mass production, and the advent of the information network.

what would you say are the biggest (5-7 or so) of the junctures in the OA universe? the introduction of nanotech? the great first singularity? the great expulsion? first contact with xenosophance? i'd like to write about one of these events from the PoV of an 'everyman' character (although i don't like that term, it's weighted).

thanks for the help!

[smithofbexar]

how is everyone.

[...]

i'm happy to be part of the community. hope to get to know y'all better in the future.

my real name's travis, by the way.

Welcome! In your wanderings through the EG you might want to take a look at the languages and linguistics section and offer up your thoughts (& maybe a writeup or two) on the development of languages, human and otherwise, in the setting. We have some descendants of English written into the setting that might easily be as far from our current language as present-day English is from PIE, but we've not much depth or detail on the subject yet. On the topic of fiction, this is a side of the project we're hoping will see more attention in the future so I'm looking forward to your first contributions.

this is something i can easily and, i reckon, greatly help with and i'll be putting energy towards that.

if the descendants of english spoken in certain places in the OA is as far from current english as english is from PIE, then it's basically the creation of a new language. PIE and english have some similar morphology and vocabulary, but it's somewhat attenuated, and what little indo-europeanists can agree on about what PIE 'looked like' would be incomprehensible to speakers of any any current day descendant languages. only students and specialists have a hope of getting it, usually.

i'll look at the languages section, which i already have skimmed.

thanks for the help.

[TSSL]

what would you say are the biggest (5-7 or so) of the junctures in the OA universe?

I'm not Drashner, but I think I can help...

This article, "Significant Cultural Impacts in the Terragen Sphere," may help. http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4870cf3453d73

It's not totally exhaustive, though... neither of the vec wars are on it, for example.

The Version War is definitely a big deal and worth checking out!

[smithofbexar]

I also share an interest in linguistics, particularly from the language creation side of things. (Most of my linguistics knowledge is tailored to that, so stuff like diachronics, phonology, morphosyntax, etc., but not computational linguistics or psychological areas.) I'd be happy to collaborate with either of you on such a project.

I've had a bunch of ideas about designing To'ul'ho'lo'ss, the lingua franca of the Tohuls (they're aliens), so while I wasn't planning to get too in depth with that for a good while yet, I could always start a discussion thread. I haven't actually checked out the English descendants yet.

Also, welcome I'm quite new here myself.

check your PMs, bro.

---

what would you say are the biggest (5-7 or so) of the junctures in the OA universe?

I'm not Drashner, but I think I can help...

This article, "Significant Cultural Impacts in the Terragen Sphere," may help. http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4870cf3453d73

It's not totally exhaustive, though... neither of the vec wars are on it, for example.

The Version War is definitely a big deal and worth checking out!

yeh, i quoted drashner's post in that reply, homeslice.

[Rynn]

in the timeline of the OA, how many critical junctures would you say there are? for example, in actual history, i would say there is the bottleneck event/out of africa migration, the creation of agriculture (this is probably the single most important event in human history, and maybe always will be), the invention of writing, metalworking, the creation of trade networks in the ancient imperial era, the invention of the square sail array, the discovery of the new world, mass production, and the advent of the information network.

what would you say are the biggest (5-7 or so) of the junctures in the OA universe? the introduction of nanotech? the great first singularity? the great expulsion? first contact with xenosophance? i'd like to write about one of these events from the PoV of an 'everyman' character (although i don't like that term, it's weighted).

We have a few timelines that can help you with this:

Historical timeline (short summary)
Technology timeline
History (has links to timelines from each era)
Scrollable timeline

If you want a list of events:

- The nanodisaster (I wouldn't advise this at the moment because it's in the midst of a major rewrite)
- The great expulsion (similar to above but could be done)
- Formation of the First Federation
- First and second Vec war
- Version war
- Appearance of the first Archai
- Rise of the Second Federation (this could be good as it's an important part of history but we tend to focus on the early and late timelines)
- Establishment of the ComEmp Period

There are plenty more just go digging in the EG

[Drashner1]

So, finally getting some time to reply to this

As you might have noticed, it's pretty normal here for anyone and everyone to reply to any post or question that comes up. Just all part of the fun

what would you say are the biggest (5-7 or so) of the junctures in the OA universe? the introduction of nanotech? the great first singularity? the great expulsion? first contact with xenosophance? i'd like to write about one of these events from the PoV of an 'everyman' character (although i don't like that term, it's weighted).

thanks for the help!

Hmm. I would say there are various major junctures that might be broken up into different groups:

Technological:

Invention of DNI
Invention of Nanotech
Creation of AI
Invention of Uploading
Development of Interstellar spaceflight
Creation of Provolves
Creation of Neogens

Culture/Civilization:

The Nanodisaster
The Great Expulsion
The First Federation
First Contact
The Version War
The Amalgamation War

Toposophic:

Creation of each new S-level (because each one drastically changed civilization when it first appeared)
Transapients take over running civilization (and this is accepted by most).

Sorry that there's so many, but it's a big setting and a long timeline

Hopefully, one or more of these will provide inspiration for a story or two.

Todd

[TSSL]

I wonder if it'd be worth expanding "Significant Cultural Impacts in the Terragen Sphere" to reflect some of those other suggestions.

[smithofbexar]

in the timeline of the OA, how many critical junctures would you say there are? for example, in actual history, i would say there is the bottleneck event/out of africa migration, the creation of agriculture (this is probably the single most important event in human history, and maybe always will be), the invention of writing, metalworking, the creation of trade networks in the ancient imperial era, the invention of the square sail array, the discovery of the new world, mass production, and the advent of the information network.

what would you say are the biggest (5-7 or so) of the junctures in the OA universe? the introduction of nanotech? the great first singularity? the great expulsion? first contact with xenosophance? i'd like to write about one of these events from the PoV of an 'everyman' character (although i don't like that term, it's weighted).

We have a few timelines that can help you with this:

Historical timeline (short summary)
Technology timeline
History (has links to timelines from each era)
Scrollable timeline

If you want a list of events:

- The nanodisaster (I wouldn't advise this at the moment because it's in the midst of a major rewrite)
- The great expulsion (similar to above but could be done)
- Formation of the First Federation
- First and second Vec war
- Version war
- Appearance of the first Archai
- Rise of the Second Federation (this could be good as it's an important part of history but we tend to focus on the early and late timelines)
- Establishment of the ComEmp Period

There are plenty more just go digging in the EG

check your PMs, bro.