My (hopefully) first addition to OA!

[Zanly]

Hi! I'm new to Orion's Arm, but I'm already so enamored by it! It's almost everything that I always wanted out of sci-fi, and it apparently has existed since before I was even born!

I've been hanging out around the official OAUP Discord server, and I've been posting many drafts of my story ideas there. The following is the latest draft of my two main stories about asperns (the Name X stuff is just placeholder names):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f9VD...sp=sharing

Keep in mind that this is just a summary, because I plan on making a webcomic out of these two stories, along with new articles (and edits to existing articles) on Encyclopaedia Galactica. There will also be plenty of lore about what asperns even are, and how they behave, etc etc.

[Worldtree]

welcome to the forums!

feel free to have a look around, see the creative writing section, etc
a webcomic sounds interesting!

[Worldtree]

From the google doc

Elevating Ants - SUMMARY DRAFT 1
PART 1
In 4473 AT, Star X was orbited by a supercomputer, which itself was running a virch.
The origins of this virch and the supercomputer are both unknown, as most of the computer’s non-virch data was lost prior to its discovery in 4470. The computer had a volume of approximately 10^8 km^3, and a mass of approximately 787.2 Zg.
The virch, now called “Asperch”, contained a single planet (dubbed “Aspernia”), surrounded by a fake sky 100 km above mean sea level. Asperch had apparently been running continuously from the moment it started, without pausing even once. Prior to being modified, Asperch used a voxel size of 25.4 μm. Only the crust of Aspernia was simulated with detail; the other 99% of the planet was very heavily approximated.
Inside Asperch, approximately 380 million virtual sophonts called “asperns” lived their lives. Aspern civilizations had reached a tech level similar to that of 14th century CE Europe. Apparently over 10,000 years had passed within the virch since it first started running. Asperns were completely oblivious to the fact that they were simulated beings. The in-virch simulation speed was highly variable, seemingly changing at random.
Asperns never actually started out as sentient, let alone sophont. Aspern sophonce was created in 4473 AT, by a local modosophont named Araash, who was enamored by the simulation. He achieved this by modifying the virch's code, in order to optimize the simulation just enough to free up enough processing power for use in aspern sophonce.
Later that year, Faction X found out about Araash's modifications. They did not appreciate Araash's modifications. Now that there were 380 million new sophonts, Faction X wanted to transfer every aspern mind into new virches.
Araash, however, decided that he'd rather erase every aspern from existence, rather than allow asperns to know about anything beyond their small world.
While Faction X rushed to transfer as many asperns as they could out of Asperch, Araash programmed the supercomputer to self-destruct.
The supercomputer exploded.
Asperns Rescued: 380,000
Asperns Lost: 380,000,000
Percent Rescued: 0.1%
PART 2
In 4475 AT, Waywow, one of the surviving asperns, now had a physical body, grown in a lab, based on the body he had in Asperch.
Prior to gaining sophonce, Waywow was a murderer; he killed several of his fellow asperns. Because he wasn't sentient or sophont when he committed those murders, Waywow was not punished for them outside of Asperch.
Waywow went on to study other sentient and sophont life in the galaxy. He began to wonder why predation existed among sentient lifeforms.
He himself couldn't ever imagine choosing to be a murderer, after being told that he wasn't in control when he began murdering his fellow asperns. He figured that other sentient life was the same way, and that they only recently gained sentience.
Waywow decided that the best thing to do would be to try to convince all sentient and sophont life that their ancestors weren't in control when they choose to start predation, and that they have the ability to choose otherwise.
Waywow began traveling to various garden worlds. After realizing that he couldn't communicate effectively with non-sophont animals, Waywow decided that he would need some help.
Waywow teamed up with Transapient X, the caretaker god of Planet X, in order to try to provolve every single sentient lifeform on Planet X. Waywow planned on then convincing the newly sophont life that they don't need to hurt each other anymore.
The problem was, Transapient X wasn't very careful while mass-provolving animals. This led to all sorts of medical and mental issues in the provolves, most of which being quite alarming and inhumane.
Transapient X was allied with Metasoft, who continued to support the mass-provolving. The Solar Dominion, however, did not approve, due to their ideology (and also because the two factions were currently at war with each other, as this all occurred during the Version War).
This disagreement led to a huge battle in orbit around Planet X, ending in a Dominion victory. Waywow and Transapient X were forced to end their mass-provolving operation.

[Worldtree]

The virch, now called “Asperch”, contained a single planet (dubbed “Aspernia”), surrounded by a fake sky 100 km above mean sea level

-no need to say a fake sky when the entire planet isn't "real" or at least, not embodied in matter. The sky can be simulated in the minds of the inhabitants, and the simulation, so it could be just as real -but still constructed- as their hands and feet and memories , in a virtual sense.

Also if it matters to mention it , I’m guessing mentioning any specific voxel size isn’t that useful as a measurement of how detailed a simulation is?


ah but the actual simulation origin was unknown. sure that works


-for the origin of the simulation, maybe add some unknown possible canidates, with no real confirmation . my 2nd Favorite option is 'unknown origin'... but "unknown origin with 7 unconfirmed conspiracy theories about what the origin might be" can have more drama

After realizing that he couldn't communicate effectively with non-sophont animals, Waywow decided that he would need some help.Waywow teamed up with Transapient X, the caretaker god of Planet X, in order to try to provolve every single sentient lifeform on Planet X. Waywow planned on then convincing the newly sophont life that they don't need to hurt each other anymore.The problem was, Transapient X wasn't very careful while mass-provolving animals. This led to all sorts of medical and mental issues in the provolves, most of which being quite alarming and inhumane.

I think a trasapient would not have issues being careful about provolving- and you don't even need transapients to do that either. Just a society of dedicated modosophonts... who could still mess up or deliberately make choices that don't turn out so well. A frequent theme in the setting , I think is 'the unintended consequences of automation' so you could play with that. And they don't need to provolve every animal- maybe just some of them... or they could be -trying- to provolve the entire ecosystem and then they fail because they're at a point where that's still very difficult to do... or they fail for any number of reasons- the least of which might just be because this is a very complex task.

anyway, this could still lead to higher minds/transapients of the solar dominion or some other faction still having a battle ...

[Worldtree]

https://discord.com/channels/31377460167...5685486672

Just noting Half this conversation is happening on discord and that if we do continue more on the forums to move this over to the Creative writing forum

[MacGregor]

Welcome to OA! Looking forward to seeing more of your work. Cheers!

[Drashner1]

Hi - Welcome to the forums!

Regarding what you have so far in your summary, a few thoughts:

a) What happened to Araash? E basically committed genocide, which seems unlikely to endear em to anyone. Was e punished? Died in the explosion? Committed suicide? Got away? Something else?

b) How did the virtual world and its inhabitants come to have the names they did? I'm assuming they were named by those who discovered it, but that isn't currently clear.

c) It's not currently clear how the inhabitants of the virch could achieve any technology or civilization at all if they were neither sentient nor sophont. This will need considerable explanation.

d) It's not currently clear how or why Waywow would be considered a 'murderer' while being non-sentient/non-sophont. Are you saying that e was a predator and that e came to define predation as murder or something else?

Ok, I think that covers things for now. Hope this helps and looking forward to future developments and discussions.

Todd

[Rynn]

It would be good to post this in the relevant subforum and to post the body text to the forum rather than a google doc. This will ensure that more people see it and will provide a history of article development. Currently you could edit or delete that doc which would make the comment chain nonsensical