Orion’s Arm
August 18th, 2005
Orion’s Arm is, quite simply, the most impressive, most well-developed, and most extensive collaborative “shared world” science fiction milieux I have ever encountered either on the Net or in oldskool static print.
Orion’s Arm sets itself a lofty goal - map out the next ten thousand years of terragenic civilization and sapience utilizing only hard sci-fi principles either already known to current physics/biology/cognitive-sci/etc. or logically extrapolated therefrom (no moronic psi powers, FTL maguffins, or treknobabble, thank you very much) - and actually achieves it through the collaborative imaginative superpowers of a number of hardcore sci-fi freaks n’ geeks from all over the world. I cannot stress the following point enough: this is not a piecemeal environment compiled higgledy-piggledy by various nerds obsessed with Farscape and other such ludicrous tropes - Orion’s Arm is self-consciously styled on fairly traditional Space Opera grounds in order for it to be engaging, fascinating, and dramatic to everyday readers…yet is founded in rock-solid scientific, sociological, and psychological principles. Orion’s Arm is as richly-textured as real life, with a consistent historical and technological model that give rise to a world that remains convincing and flat-out exciting even as it’s populated with such trans-trans-transapient beings as “AI Gods” with constellations of Jupiter-sized brains processing thoughts powerful enough affect the quantum vacuum itself!
The foundations of the Orion’s Arm universe are laid in the very near future, deriving primarily from three paradigm-shifting technological developments: artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and the interfacing of human neurologics with machine circuitry. These are three technologies virtually every transhumanist on the planet (like myself) are looking forward to and keeping tabs on, for they promise to lead to truly revolutionary changes in the basics of human life on Earth and, eventually, beyond it. From there, the next ten thousand years of terragenic history, involving the founding of interstellar empires, the development of godlike machine intelligences, the fragmenting of humanity and its robotic cognates into literally billions of separate species, clades, phyla, and so forth, and encounters with alien intelligences and the remnants of extinct civilizations, are mapped out in the most incredible detail. All of this background information is provided in a simple graduated timeline, a glossary, and a “galactography” illustrating the current distribution of civilizations through the 8000-lightyear volume of the “Civilized Galaxy,” as well as an amazing index of sophonts detailing the evolution and nature of the millions of different thinking things populating the galactic scene.
Best of all, Orion’s Arm is NOT just an exercise in transhumanist futurology–were it such, it would still be amazing and Mad Fun to read…but all of this worldbuilding has not been done just for its own sake! Orion’s Arm is fundamentally a collaborative world which anyone can contribute to and use for his/her/its own creative development. “Cafe OA” showcases various forms of short fiction inhabiting the OA universe. The Orion’s Arm universe is also uniquely suited to gaming possibilities, as well, and there are a number of RPGs based in various eras of the OA universe are currently in the works. The site also includes a large gallery of graphic works, a HUGE collection of links to various scientific whitepapers and other resources designed to help out potential OA-builders, and all manner of other supplementary materials.
In fact, the site is so thoroughly developed, expect to spend a few days wading through it all.
The OA community is particularly vibrant and friendly, as well. Expect to find me contributing to the site a great deal in coming times–and while you’re at it, if you find yourself as inspired by the construction as I have been, then feel free to contribute! Best of all, the entire project is licensed under Creative Commons!
On a personal note…I’ve been working on a novel lately whose core concepts have turned out to be dramatically similar to many of the ideas developed in the OA universe. It won’t take much work at all to tweak it in order to fit into the OA world. So expect to see something of that emerging in the near future as well!
In the meantime, lose yourself in one of the most perfectly realized future histories ever developed. I’m sure you’ll find me kicking around in there someplace, careening from wormhole to wormhole in my Archailect-powered starship The Inevitable Middle Finger, with my Muuh astrogator riding shotgun and a Greater Archive stuffed in the hold, headed for the Periphery where I heard I might be able to jack into some ancient transcension network and upgrade myself to AI God….
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