Just steered into port...

[mawrhinamtiskaw]

Hi, all! I'm really excited to join the forums here and get to know the community better. I've been a reader and writer of science fiction among other things for years, and while most of my own work has a "softer" bent, I later found that transhumanist themes make for much more interesting stories in hard sf! I've been reading Orion's Arm for some time now, and it seems to have taken the best of those elements and spun them into a sprawling space opera where anything is possible. 

I'm hoping to share some of my own work within the universe soon. Some themes that especially interest me are:

 - Slices of life in the empires

 - Sephirotic diplomacy

 - OA interpersonal relationships, especially interclade 

 - Mental health in the Sephirotic Alliance

This setting can generate so many unique characters, and that's what I'm most interested in exploring! I'll be curious to see how well others think my stories fit in with the project. I've seen all kinds of styles in the archive, but my tendency to dwell on the inner lives of characters may need some adjustment. 

I'm also interested in drawing more within the universe and perhaps even making some renders. The visual art on this site is incredibly nostalgic. 

I hope I'm able to exchange some work with others soon! I've always been so interested in transhumanism and the personalities of the far future, and OA seems like the perfect place to connect over those topics.

[Rynn]

Welcome Slice of life and mental health are two of my favourite topics at OA too. For the former the narrative introductions to certain articles are a great window into the setting. For the latter there are a lot of interesting themes to explore, whether that's what it means to be mentally unhealthy in an age of easy psychosurgery to what kinds of novel disorders may arise from experimental/conflicting augmentations.

[Drashner1]

Hi - Welcome to OA!

If you have any questions or concerns regarding any aspect of the project or setting, please don't hesitate to ask.

Also, please feel free to join in on any discussions taking place on the forums (or our Discord) or to start new ones if you've a mind to.

Regarding your specific areas of interest, these (and much/most else) are fair game in terms of being subjects of or elements in stories and articles in the setting. I wouldn't really worry about the issue of dwelling on the inner lives of characters vs any trends or tendencies you've seen in the stories already written. You can safely think of such trends/tendencies as matters of coincidence or habit rather than any formal editorial policy or even community standard among the OA membership.

Basically, as long as a story fits within OA Canon and what might be termed 'realistic common sense' (aka obvious plot armor ala most TV shows and many films is not really a thing here), we're happy to consider it for inclusion in the project.

Re artwork - by all means, please share. By chance do you have any samples of your work online that we could take a look at?

Hope this all helps and once again - Welcome to OA!

Todd

[mawrhinamtiskaw]

Welcome Slice of life and mental health are two of my favourite topics at OA too. For the former the narrative introductions to certain articles are a great window into the setting. For the latter there are a lot of interesting themes to explore, whether that's what it means to be mentally unhealthy in an age of easy psychosurgery to what kinds of novel disorders may arise from experimental/conflicting augmentations.

Yeah, differing definitions of insanity between, say, the Negentropy Alliance and the Technorapture Hypernation are fascinating to contemplate. I especially think about psychologies that are looked down upon/pitied in today's world and how the social ecologies of the far future might support or even prefer them. Sometimes that juxtaposition is so compelling that I wonder if cryopreservation across millennia could be a viability in this setting, some eccentric or another setting their alarm clock for the Eleventh Millenium and finding themselves adjusting to vastly different standards. Of course, that might be probing too deeply into the near future, but maybe some plot devices could obscure any fatal details?

[mawrhinamtiskaw]

Hi - Welcome to OA!

If you have any questions or concerns regarding any aspect of the project or setting, please don't hesitate to ask.

Also, please feel free to join in on any discussions taking place on the forums (or our Discord) or to start new ones if you've a mind to.

Regarding your specific areas of interest, these (and much/most else) are fair game in terms of being subjects of or elements in stories and articles in the setting. I wouldn't really worry about the issue of dwelling on the inner lives of characters vs any trends or tendencies you've seen in the stories already written. You can safely think of such trends/tendencies as matters of coincidence or habit rather than any formal editorial policy or even community standard among the OA membership.

Basically, as long as a story fits within OA Canon and what might be termed 'realistic common sense' (aka obvious plot armor ala most TV shows and many films is not really a thing here), we're happy to consider it for inclusion in the project.

Re artwork - by all means, please share. By chance do you have any samples of your work online that we could take a look at?

Hope this all helps and once again - Welcome to OA!

Todd

Thanks! In terms of art, I think a couple of my favourite subjects could be reworked into vecs or provolves pretty easily, so definitely more of that to come. 

Some of the song lyrics and poems I've found in the archive are also really neat. I'll probably be trying my hand at some OA verse at one point or another.

[Rynn]

Yeah, differing definitions of insanity between, say, the Negentropy Alliance and the Technorapture Hypernation are fascinating to contemplate. I especially think about psychologies that are looked down upon/pitied in today's world and how the social ecologies of the far future might support or even prefer them.

The differences between what some societies consider healthy is a great topic to explore. It's even the type of thing that the civilised galaxy may make a part of clearing customs upon travel. You'd want to be sure that you don't arrive somewhere that considers your psychology in need of healing.

Sometimes that juxtaposition is so compelling that I wonder if cryopreservation across millennia could be a viability in this setting, some eccentric or another setting their alarm clock for the Eleventh Millenium and finding themselves adjusting to vastly different standards. Of course, that might be probing too deeply into the near future, but maybe some plot devices could obscure any fatal details?

Many kinds of stasis exist in the setting. The easiest is simply uploading yourself and hitting pause. Hell you could upload and dial the clockrate of your mind right down, watch sunsets and sunrise flick by at hundreds of times per second. Someone practicing a lifestyle where they spend a few years travelling and then a few decades/centuries in stasis would totally work. The only thing worth keeping in mind is this would be harder in the early timeline (the first thousand years or so). Uploading was possible but for biological beings it wasn't easy to go back to a biological body, meaning the choice to do this would entail sticking with a synthetic body for a while. Also the very early timeline (i.e. the first few hundred years from the present day) did not have reliable uploading, backups, or even stasis. The latter was good but a risk, with a certain number of colonists in each interstellar launch dying on transit.

[Worldtree]

I just want to say welcome and this is fantastic that you’re exploring different mental states between societies - I’ve also thought it’s one of the wealthiest in possibilities for OA

[Drashner1]

Yeah, differing definitions of insanity between, say, the Negentropy Alliance and the Technorapture Hypernation are fascinating to contemplate. I especially think about psychologies that are looked down upon/pitied in today's world and how the social ecologies of the far future might support or even prefer them. Sometimes that juxtaposition is so compelling that I wonder if cryopreservation across millennia could be a viability in this setting, some eccentric or another setting their alarm clock for the Eleventh Millenium and finding themselves adjusting to vastly different standards. Of course, that might be probing too deeply into the near future, but maybe some plot devices could obscure any fatal details?

If you haven't already, suggest that you check out Dirty Hands in our fiction section.

It plays with the stasis element you mention, although the characters don't get all the way to Y11k in their journey thru time.

It does offer an interesting take on how someone who is recognizably 'someone like us' (people in real life (RL) ) might get into the OA future. Including the bit about whether or not they are real or simulations of some kind.

Another story that plays with the simulation concept a bit more (and from a different direction) is The Fireman.

There are also transapients in the setting who create such Societeums for their own (not always pleasant) purposes and hide them away from the rest of the world. In some cases, the Civilized Galaxy is able to locate and liberate these places, gradually helping the inhabitants leave and join the wider civilization.

In other words, even though it isn't really possible to literally take someone from our time and physically (temporally) transport them into Y11k, it is possible to get within some centuries of the here and now - or have them come from a simulation of our world that is virtually indistinguishable from reality - until they are freed or otherwise find themselves in one of the Sephirotic empires or the like.

Hope this helps,

Todd