Unfortunately, you will have to write your fan fiction in English to have a chance to be selected:
One of the main goals of the fan fiction contest is that all texts can be read by the whole community.
Most people in the community are not speaking French and won't be able to read French.
So even if a text is really good, it wouldn't make sense to select a text that the majority of people isn't able to read.
The fact that Novaquark is a French Company is not relevant on this topic.
What matters is what it means for the whole community.
That being said, we don't want to close the contest to non-native English writers either:
1) A non-native English writer can seek help from a native English speaker to polish the text in English.
2) The native English speaker must be aware that it can help only on a volunteer basis: he won't be eligible for any reward.
3) If a non-native English writer seek help from a native English speaker, he must submit the complete text before proofreading. Once his text is proofread, he will have to keep both pre-proofread and post-proofread versions of the text available.
4) On a similar topic, we prefer to precise that if several participants write a text together, only the one submitting the text on the forum will be eligible, as there will be only one prize per text.
The Contest rules have been udpated accordingly.
@Anonymous:
Thanks for offering your help to non-native English writers. Much appreciated!
I marked this story as non-canon because it is not consistent with the lore bible that was released today. Specifically, I assumed the first arkships would depart long before they did in the actual lore. I intend to work on a new version of the story that does follow the lore.
A couple of celestial mechanics points... just quibbling...
* A neutron star actually hitting the sun is vanishingly unlikely, and if it happened, disrupted planetary orbits would be the least of our problems. Basically, the neutron star would accrete a huge amount of gas from the sun and trigger a supernova-like event (a type 1a, for example, is caused by gas accretion onto a white dwarf) plus probable black hole formation. All the planets would basically get turned into plasma, and any object within a couple of lightyears would get cooked by the gamma rays (heck, if you were on Mars you'd get a lethal dose just from the neutrinos -- see https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/)
* A close passage (ie: outer solar system distance) is all that would be needed to disrupt the orbits and render Earth uninhabitable.
Before starting to read the Lore Bible, here are three things to keep in mind:
- Some names and acronyms (put between brackets) in the texts below are still temporary names/placeholders. The final names will be decided in the following days. The update will be announced on the forum and on the social media. We don't want to keep these names, for different reasons varying for each case. Once in its final version, it will be published on the Community Wiki hosted by Gamepedia in a more structured way.
- It was a difficult decision but we have to consider that some parts of the short story written by Alain Damasio will be modified or removed. We all agree in the team that Alain Damasio has made a short story of the highest quality, but this short story was written more than a year ago (July 2015) and at that time, too many points regarding the game universe were unclear or undecided. With all the recent additions to the Lore Bible (those released today publicly and those which remain hidden as "secrets" for the time being), it generated some inconsistencies difficult to solve. We tried to find solutions or workarounds, without success. Some points were also not possible to represent in-game, gameplay wise. While the short story will be updated in the near future to fit with the current Lore Bible, in the meantime here are the specific points from the short story you should not take into account when writing a Fan Fiction for Dual Universe (if you want it to be eligible for being integrated to the official backstory of the game, of course. If not, you are not bind to such limitation).
Unfortunately, Sohan Decker is not a member of the Alpha Team, as he woke up just a few weeks before the Arkship landing on Alioth and do not participate in the neural simulation that will take place more than a year and a half before the landing. Aphelia memory must have had a glitch when talking to Sohan for the first time.
When approaching some Kyrium, the matter doesn't reflect human faces aging or growing younger. Sohan Decker has probably some hallucinations, a possible side-effect of the long cryogenic sleep.
While probably convinced of it, Sohan Decker didn't communicate with an invisible entity by using elements and he didn't get some schematics of a high-performance reactor in Kyrium as a reward. The proof? When asked to show it, he's not able to find it anywhere! Poor Sohan. Probably another hallucination. Cryogenic sleep seems to have a lasting side effect on him.
- The Novaquark might slightly change the Lore Bible over time, but we will try to keep those changes to a minimum, to ensure that it doesn't contradict fanfictions that have been already integrated to the official lore. These changes will occur mainly when an inconstancy is discovered in the official lore. And in this regard, we count on your feedback to track down every little detail that might seem inconsistent (some details may be awkward on purpose though ). As always, we remain open to your feedback on the Official Lore. Let us know what you think about it!
That being said... Happy reading!
Dual Universe Lore
Dual Universe takes place about 10.000 years after the Grand Exodus when humanity left the Earth to establish itself in new star systems. The information below is meant to help answer the most common questions about the game environment and try to set the general framework where fan fiction can be written.
Main historical dates
2027: Discovery of the doomsday Neutron Star that is heading towards the Earth. Collision will happen in 498 years. There are margins of error, so we don’t yet know if it means annihilation or simply major disruption in the solar system’s planets, but the end result is the same: the Earth will not be able to host humanity anymore. The event is nicknamed the [“Star Kiss of Death”], or [SKiD]. It’s basically the Armageddon.
2049: Creation of the United Earth Federation (UEF), a transnational institution in charge of coordinating humanity’s efforts and response to the SKiD. After concluding there was no hope to save Earth, the “Rebirth Program” is launched to analyze possible responses and escape strategies. New measures are voted to encourage natality in the population, to fight against a nihilist movement that advocates a “no future” philosophy and maintain a sufficient level of humans in the long run to fuel the Rebirth Project’s considerable needs.
2084: Better measurements have narrowed the margin of error. We are now certain that the neutron star will hit our solar system, and will actually collide with the Sun, turning into a black hole that will ultimately swallow or eject into deep space all the planets, Earth included. There is no hope anymore. Major funding is directed towards the Rebirth Program. All nation states must contribute at least 20% of their resources
2100: Mankind is entering a new era where robotics and AI have profoundly transformed society. Work as we know it has long disappeared, and social influence has replaced money as the currency of value. People do not “work” anymore, they have “activities” that can get them socially recognized. Money is still used, via a Universal Revenue, mainly as a way to control the scarcity in production, and balance the availability of goods against their rarity.
2130: AI have reached a threshold of global sentience. It is active in political, economic and social debates, and, while its benefits are recognized because it allowed the transition to the post-work era, more and more concern is raised about the sentient aspect and the potentially uncontrollable dimension of the AI agenda. Irrational fear rises. The AIs try to reassure the population that they have no rational reason to threaten humanity, but it only increases the level of suspicion within society.
2145: Massive rebellions all around the world signals the end of sentient AI, introducing a permanent universal ban on this technology, enforced by the very powerful UEF. Against all expectations, sentient AIs accept this and willingly shut down without any form of violent action.
2150: Society is reorganizing itself, as many “jobs” that needed sentient-level AI (surprisingly many, including low skill manual work), are once again left to humans to perform. Robots, in general, are banned also, as most of them required sentient-level AI to function properly. Early attempts at designing automated non-sentient robots all failed in the late 21st century, as it was discovered that sentience was a necessary byproduct of any sufficiently sophisticated AI for it to be able to interact with a complex world.
2200: A major summit of the UEF signals the alarming lack of progress on project Rebirth at the dawn of the 23rd century. Debates continue for years afterward about priorities, what technology to use to build Arkships that could help evacuate Earth, who would be eligible if we cannot host the 3 billion people still in the current population.
2200-2400: Major political events keep slowing down humanity and the UEF in its attempts to advance the technologies needed to build functional Arkships. Many wars, economic crisis, and nihilist terrorism are plaguing the progress.
2400: A period of calm and peace opens up. Major progress is suddenly made in the technologies needed to build the Arkships. Some are scheduled to be built within the next decade.
2440: Several key technologies are unlocked: cryosleep modules, nanoforming technology, nanopack condensers, resurrection nodes (it is unfortunately too late to use this to save humanity, as we would need to install billions of them out of the solar system, on a hospitable planet. There is not enough time for this).
2450: The Arkship technology is now mastered. Mass production begins. The race is on to produce as many as possible.
2500: Terrifying high-resolution images of the neutron star are provided by our most powerful telescopes. Riots break out all around the world over the selection process that dictates who gets to board the Arkships. The process was created by a scientific committee from the UEF, aimed at gathering the maximal amount of genetic diversity, plus a lottery to offset the fact that not everybody could go. Massive euthanasia programs were organized for those who had to stay, in order to provide them with a painless death at the time of their choosing.
2510-2536: The first Arkships leave Earth. Each Arkship is heading towards a particular part of the galaxy. One of them, the Novark, is heading towards the Scutum-Centaurus arm.
2538: The neutron star annihilates the solar system. Arkships are on their way, heading towards different regions of the galaxy.
12477: The Novark arrives on Alioth with a mighty thud as it deploys itself into the planet surface. From afar the planet shows many similarities to that of Earth, a blue and green marble sitting in the goldilocks zone of its star. Large continents surrounded by equally large oceans define the planet's appearance. Mountain ranges suggest continental drift, and large forests have taken hold over most of the planet. Primitive lifeforms are abundant. There are no obvious signs of advanced lifeforms.
Year 0 after arrival (0 AA): It will be your turn to write History in-game.
The world in 2500
In the century that preceded the Grand Exodus, the Earth’s population had dropped considerably, down to something less than 1 billion people. The “no future” movement had gained a considerable momentum. people were simply trying to tend to their immediate needs; losing any vision for the future or any concern for the consequences of their actions. Natality had dropped to an all-time low, crime had been continuously rising, and nation-states, as we know them, had long disappeared.
The UEF was the last large-scale social structure still holding, among a myriad of medium to small sized city-states. UEF representatives and offices, research centers, production units, etc, were scattered all around the world within the largest city-states. The UEF’s role now extended far beyond its initial goals, including a feared and powerful armed force to maintain order and ensure that the proper funding was collected from all city-states, in order to fuel the Rebirth Program.
A global language shared by all people on the planet started to emerge at the end of the 21st century. By the end of the 22nd century, almost everyone was speaking at least two languages: the global language (the “common”) and their local native language, each city-state having somehow evolved a variant from their original country’s language.
Economy
During the first half of the 21st century, the Internet quickly decentralized the economy, removing intermediaries and frictions. Anyone was able to open their own marketplace online, with powerful central aggregators to help integrate available offers. This was both true of goods and services. This highly distributed model of economy stood the test of time, both during the sentient AI era, and even after, up until the last century.
One of the main challenges of the last century, after the city-states model had become the norm, was logistics. Transporting goods over long distances carried the risk of being attacked by pirate hordes living outside of the city-states. The UEF and other independent security groups were in charge of ensuring protection, but still, the risk made inter-city trade dangerous, and local markets were the preferred method for basic commerce.
A global currency, the [U2] [(Universal Unit)], is installed by the UEF at the beginning of the 22nd century. It has acquired a growing support over the years and is still used as a reference currency on Alioth to help organize the exchanges of goods and services between colonists.
Culture & Society
At the moment of the Grand Exodus, humanity, and more precisely the UEF, was divided into four main political movements, essentially different from each other in the way they decided to answer one simple fundamental question: what is the main driving force in the development of humanity? Behind this question lies the promise of a political agenda on how to best rebuild civilization after the Grand Exodus and where to put priorities.
The [Luminous] are the first group. They consider the main driving force to be knowledge and wisdom. They value science, industry, and technology as the main sources of progress, and were heavily involved in the Rebirth Program, which led to the construction of the Arkships. They are, of course, very much respected for this even if some may criticize them for their all too rational take on things.
The Alphas are the second group. For them, the main driving force is, well, … force. They believe that people will respond mostly to strength and balance of power. They favor military action as a way to control and orient the evolution of the world in an attempt to avoid chaos and prevent instability. Their intentions are good, but they often fall to scandals involved with their expeditious way of handling subtle situations.
The [Ethereans] constitute the third group. They believe in the power of culture and arts. For them, humanity needs to be driven by dreams, beauty, and ideals before anything else. This is what gives us meaning. They are not against more practical endeavors but like to see these activities as a way to expand and support their vision. They have many supporters but are also often criticized for their lack of pragmatic action.
The [Emporium] is the final group. They believe in the power of money and commerce. They think that this has been the life and blood of human societies for millennia and, even if they will gladly regret it in private, they think this is nevertheless what gets the job done and can really set people in motion. Some point to them as a cause of an ever greater inequality, but they know how to silence critics and make people happy.
None of these movements are inherently good or bad, they all value human life and sincerely want to help drive humanity to success again.
Science & Technology
After the early 2400 years, science and technology suddenly advanced very rapidly. Incredible innovation occurred, becoming the foundation of the industrial, societal and economical program of Project Rebirth. Here are some of the most prominent breakthrough:
Nano fields: an expected advance in theoretical physics led to the discovery of a new force in nature, called the nano force due to its scale, that allows the fine control of the molecular dynamics of matter with incredible precision using high-frequency nano fields. Nano fields can be focused and modulated in a very precise way to destructure, collect or deploy and assemble matter in a short range radius. This is the core technology that gave birth to the nanoformer that every colonist is now equipped with.
Calabi-Yau Compactification: the science behind CYC has been inexplicably lost in the Arkship archives. It is the technology that powers nanopacks, which are extra small containers (that colonists wear on their suit), capable of amazing volume and weight reductions of almost anything contained in them. All we know is that it seems to work based on the possibility of storing matter within the extra dimensions of space-time allowed by String Theory, inside what is called the Calabi-Yau space. The exact science and understanding behind them have been lost and attempts at reverse engineering have all failed. Due to the limited number of Nanopacks available and their considerable value, further attempts to reverse engineer them are discouraged.
Nano fields displacement: this is a direct application of nano fields, used to collect, store and maintain matter within containers. The matter constituting objects is analyzed and de-structured first then stored using stable nano fields and can then be retrieved later via a reverse process that reconstructs the original object. Unlike with CYC, only limited volume gain can be obtained, and no weight reduction is possible.
Nano 3D printing: based again on the versatile nano fields, advanced 3D printers became possible. They are capable to assemble matter from reservoir sources to build small sized technological parts; from electronic to industrial units. Coupled to the automated assembly, this quickly became the basis of the industrial chain.
Quantum branching: Quantum Branching is at the heart of the Resurrection Node technology and is based on the “Many Worlds Interpretation” of quantum mechanics. At any moment, in particular, when you die violently, several versions of the universe coexist in parallel. Scientists working on EPR pair experiments unexpectedly found a way to instantly switch one universe with another, and in particular to switch the universe where you die with another one where everything would be exactly the same, except that your body position would be inside a Resurrection Node. The amount of matter to switch increases the energy cost of the operation, so RN teleport only the minimal set of mass to get the desired effect, which is... your naked body. A Resurrection Node is paired with your body and cannot be used by somebody else. It will make you virtually immortal, even if natural aging will probably get you out of the loop at some point.
Propulsion Engines: the conquest and exploration of the arrival star system, as well as nearby other stars, is a clear objective of the UEF for each arkship colony. Several engine technologies have been perfected as part of the Rebirth Program to allow for various flight modes, either within the atmosphere or in space. Warp drive technology was near completion and should become available a few years after the arrival, and even stargate instant transport has been sketched as a not too distant possibility but was unfortunately still not available at the time of the Grand Exodus. Warp drive speed is believed to be in the range of 100 times the speed of light, while super warp probes, that could be used to seed stargates, could reach up to 10.000 times the speed of light Making it possible to cross the entire galaxy in just 10 years.
Environment & Alioth
Alioth is a rocky planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star, very similar to the Sun. It has been selected due to its very similar Earth-like environment, including oceans, forests, mountains, and lakes. It has a moderate fauna and flora. The temperature during the day is similar to what can be found on Earth, but nights can be extremely cold.
The planet underground contains all the usual materials needed for basic industry, but more rare resources may have to be later harvested from one of Alioth’s three moons, or even from more distant planets in the system.
The planet day/night cycle is only 5 hours, and its weather pattern is relatively stable. Overall, Alioth is a very life-friendly planet, carefully chosen to facilitate the starting years of colonists.
The Arkship
The Arkships are a marvel of technology. They can host millions of people in cryosleep for extended periods of time. Made out of Kyrium, they can sustain incredible amounts of deceleration or acceleration, and absorb the corresponding crushing forces for whatever stand inside them. The origin of Kyrium is not well documented, and it seems that the material cannot be produced from a known industrial process, but has probably been found during some mining operations within the solar system.
Designed to travel close to the speed of light for extended periods, the Arkship engines are also not part of the colonist UEF documentation and no assembly schema could be found within the archives. There is much debate over why the UEF would intentionally withdraw such potentially useful information.
Each Arkship is controlled by a proto-sentient AI that was allowed to be built against the very strong UEF AI ban because it was argued that it would have been to hazardous to let the fate of humanity rest with dumb automatic machinery that would possibly not be able to react to unexpected situations. While being an exception to the AI ban rule, the onboard AI is still however not allowed to take control of any machinery or robot beside the Arkship itself. The Novark AI is called “Aphelia”.
Once on approach to the destination planet, the Arkship is designed to literally “plant” itself into the planet, to allow the deployment of deep geothermal energy collectors that should sustain the ship functions for potentially unlimited amounts of time. One of the key functions of the ship once arrived, is to deploy a 20km radius safe zone area where colonist would be free from any form of aggression from the outside, or… from themselves. It was indeed decided that the potentially violent nature of mankind under stressful situations should be mitigated with appropriate supervision. Within the safe zone, Aphelia is in charge of maintaining order and providing support and information to colonists.
Regrettably, one known consequence of prolonged cryosleep periods is that the subject will suffer from a loss of episodic memory, as well as most high-level cognitive memory like expertise, skills or know-how. To mitigate this side-effect, the Arkship archive contains large data banks that are transferable to colonists via a wireless data transfer process involving brain implants capable of stimulating neural activity. The process is slow and can take days for the most advanced skills, but is an effective way to re-enable lost knowledge for long time space travelers.
The Arkship extreme energy efficiency, designed to allow the ship to travel for millennia, forced trade-offs on what could be embarked in order to minimize the total mass, and of course, human bodies were preferred over any other “mass”. For this reason, and because nano 3D printing would make it possible to easily rebuild them, no ship or industrial machine was included inside the Arkships’ cargo. Humanity would have to rebuild civilization from scratch. A large set of Resurrection Nodes tuned to each registered colonist where however installed inside the Arkship to avoid any loss of precious life once arrived on the destination planet. For these reasons, the inside of the Arkship, besides the propulsion machinery, is mostly occupied by cryosleep pods, as well as Resurrection Nodes.
Alpha Team
While most of the Arkship passengers will wake up after the Arkship landing, a few thousand among them become half awakened between a few years and a few weeks before the arrival: the Alpha Team. While their bodies are still asleep, their brains are awakened and connected to an advanced neural/computer network that immerses them collectively within a virtual reality that is meant to simulate their first steps on the destination planet, for education and testing purposes.
During this simulation, of course, nobody can die (this represents the Alpha phase in-game). They are given easier access to certain resources in order to help them experience various stages of the tasks they will have to face in real life when arrived. The Alpha Team will then be in charge of guiding newcomers and helping to bootstrap the first months of civilization rebuilding on the destination planet.
Mysteries
The cryosleep memory loss side effect and the apparently incomplete archive has given birth to several mysteries for which colonists have developed many “theories”:
Kyrium is an absolute mystery. Nothing is available in the Arkship archives about its nature, how it was found, how to create it or even manipulate it. No colonist have the slightest memory about the Kyrium. If Aphelia is asked for information on Kyrium, the Novark’s AI will just give an elusive answer, explaining its lack of information as memory loss. Obviously, this is not a satisfying answer.
Aphelia is in charge of the Novark and the well-being of all the passengers. She seems as caring as invasive in the private life of the colonists. While she doesn’t seem brutal, hostile or coercive by default, her behavior is perceived as if she monitors every action of each human that has been aboard the Novark. She also seems to avoid disclosing information on some specific topics - at least that’s the feeling of some passengers - despite the fact she always says if she doesn’t give a satisfying answer, it’s because the answer is beyond its capabilities. For these two reasons, many colonists think the AI is not trustworthy. Aphelia seems to have incredible defenses against hacking, far higher than anything the most experienced colonists in hacking have ever seen, reinforcing the feeling that the AI might hide a lot of things.
The Arkship light speed engine is completely undocumented. No schema is available to rebuild one using 3D nano-printing, or by any other means.
There seems to be no trace of the records pointing to the destination of the other Arkships within the galaxy.
Barren functionality, that is what Ben thought as he sat and waited. A mismatched collection of chairs lined the walls, while a double row of them, back to back, filled the center of the room. There were no pictures, no plants, no tables covered with out-dated magazines. The agency had neither the time nor the money to acquire such things, but few people cared. Most of them, like Karilynne, were too focused on their phones to notice what was missing. Ben had not bothered to take out his own phone. He had too much on his mind, so he just stared at his wife and wondered what the future held for them.
"Benignus and Karilynne Fargo, please, come to Room C3. Benignus and Karilynne Fargo, come to Room C3."
Ben stood up and looked at his wife. "We better go. Shouldn't keep them waiting."
Karilynne tapped her phone a few more times, then slipped it into her purse. "No, suppose not."
---
As the couple entered the room, the woman behind the desk smiled at them and waved them to a pair of chairs facing her. The tag with the UN logo clipped to her jacket identified her as Roberta Stuart. As soon as they were seated, Stuart said, "No use making good news wait. Your applications have been approved."
Ben grinned widely, "We're going on the arkship!"
Stuart nodded, "Yes, you'll be leaving in two weeks. I know that's not much time to take care of your affairs here, but we had a couple unexpected openings, and well, you were the best suited for them."
Ben grabbed his wife's hand, still grinning. "We've made it. I can't believe we're going."
Karilynne smiled back at him, but her forehead was wrinkled with worry. "We need to tell her, Ben. To see if it'll be alright."
Stuart narrowed her eyes and asked, "If what'll be alright?"
Karilynne put her other hand on top of her husband's, so she held his between her two. "We just found out a couple days ago. I'm expecting...we're going to have a baby."
"Oh...." Stuart shook her head slowly. "I wish I could tell you that wasn't a problem, but the truth is we just don't know what affect cryosleep would have on a pregnancy. It's unlikely the baby would develop normally and it would be an unacceptably high risk for you, Karilynne."
Ben sat in shook for a few moments, then said weakly, "We can't go?"
Stuart hesitated, then said, "You can still go, but we'd have to terminate the pregnancy. There's enough time and if you decide on that, we can make all the arrangements for you."
Karilynne wrapped her arms protectively around her belly and cried out, "No! You can't do that to my baby!"
Stuart looked at the woman, then at her husband who was sitting speechless. "I know this difficult. I can give you one day to think it over, but no more. Come back tomorrow and let me know what you've decided."
---
Ben was sitting at his drafting table, looking through his sketches, plans he had made of spaceships, some practical, some more fanciful. Karilynne walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder. She said gently, "You really want to go, don't you? We can apply for another arkship...after the baby's born."
Ben shrugged. "The way things are going, I'm not sure there'll be another arkship. Even if there is, I doubt someone who's rejected their first offer'll get another one."
"Then we'll just stay here. Maybe it won't be so bad."
"There's no future here. We're living on a doomed planet."
Karilynne grasped his shoulders. "But it won't be destroyed in our lifetimes...or our baby's. We still have time to live out our lives here."
"On world with no hope? What kind of life will that be?" Ben swiped his arm across the table, scattering his drawings to the floor. "How long do you think we can hold on to civilization here? You see it already...the people who don't care about anything...who do whatever the feel because nothing matters to them any more. And it'll only get worse. Do want to live like that...raise our child like that?"
Karilynne turned her husband around to look into his eyes. "Our child doesn't have a choice. Our child'll live here or not at all. So, I don't have a choice either."
She stopped to fight back her tears, then continued, "But, you have a choice. You can still go."
"Without you?"
"Yes, without me. Because you love me." Her tears started to stream down, but she went on, "If you stay, you'll resent me...resent the baby. You'll say you won't, you'll try not to, but I know you...I know it'll happen and that'd be the worse thing I can imagine."
Ben stammered, "But...you and the baby...you'll be alone."
"Mom and Dad are still here. They'll take care of us. We'll be alright." She reached behind her neck and unclasped the chain she wore around it. On the chain was a round silver pendant with a blue turquoise crescent set in it. "Take this...so you'll remember me."
Ben took the pendant and studied it. "Isn't this the one your Grandma gave you? I...I can't take this."
"You have to. I promised Grandma I'd keep it safe...and there's nowhere on Earth it'll be safe anymore. But, with you, it will be. So ten thousand years from now, when you get to your new world, look at it and think about me and the baby."
Ben closed his hand around the pendant and held it close to his chest. "If I leave now, I won't know the baby's name...or even if it's a boy or a girl."
Karilynne smiled at him. "She's a girl and her name'll be Lunette."
"The doctor's told you she's a girl?"
"My heart told me. Just like it tells me you need to go to that far away star. And like it tells me no matter how far away you are, you'll always love me."
Ben took her hand and said softly, "Mine tells me that, too."
Some of you may be aware of Geocaching, and if you are then I'm suggesting an in-game version and you already know where I'm going. If you don't know what Geocaching is, I suggest you look it up because you might be interested, and you can almost definitely get involved.
Anyway, given the nature of Dual Universe I think it would be awesome to create a system of Exocaching. That is, you would go out into the universe and build a little something on a random spot of a planet or asteroid. You would then mark this location on the central Exocach database, and any other player could see the location in the database and go and find your cach, and put their name there to say they found it.
They could be easy, like a big pink monument in a sandy desert, or difficult, such as a little pedestal inside a small natural cave in the same said desert. They could simply be small creations with the names of the those that have found it, or they could provide clues as to the whereabouts of other cachs which aren't in the database, meaning you would have to find the first one to find all the next ones. You could even make whole treasure hunts out of them for other people to find! Although, the point of most cachs is that they don't contain anything valuable, so as to deter theft/vandalism and promote fun.
This sort of thing would require:
- Coordinate systems, i.e. 'xy' on planet 8 of the system at 'xyz'
- A method of keeping text in-game, i.e. minecraft signs
It would also need willing participants, though that isn't up to the devs. For a game like DU, where everything is made by the players and there is a huge multiplayer galaxy to explore and discover, I think this could add something fun for people to do.
See any reasons as to why this wouldn't work? Think it would require other features on the developers part? Is this something you would be interested in?
For democracy to work you need a healthily civil society with buy in from citizens and open discussions of ideas.
I think it will happen after a few months or a year of play time but trying to run an org as a democracy on day one would be a disaster with it boiling down to a popularity contests with the loosing factions quiting and going and doing there own thing.
Unlike real life there is no way to be truely authoritarian as people can always leave and go back to the arkship, what will bind people together is a sense of a "shared investment" in the things they have built as an org and that will take time.
Just because most leaders are set in place in many organizations or picked by specific people (founders?), it doesn't necessarily exclude member participation and expression of thoughts and whatnot.
In short, textbook definitions of 'Democracy' may not exactly apply but can get damn close in many organizations due to hybrid systems and whatnot.
I'd also consider the type of organization. A government or nation-like organization can have different needs and requirements than a Corporation, for example, and a loose group of people could in turn have different layouts and needs, too.
Besides in some cases I imagine it to be tricky. There's always some responsibility and influence stuck with the founders - after all someone has to acquire all the assets and pay for them or set a course for a time. Even if there is no money involved, there's management rights involved in terms of websites and whatnot. You can't exactly replace that with someone else easily, at least I don't think you can. I also think that these financial and management responsibilities should in fact stay with or rather close to any founders.
With founders, you have the highest chance of continuation of those tasks aka paying the bills. You hand it over to someone else who once joined? Could work somehow, probably just too tricky depending on what you have to pay, but once they leave for whatever reason you have to change again. They could, due to sabotage or anger, also just throw it all out the window. Not like similar things didn't happen already.
At least that's how I see it. I'll aim for a hybrid-system so far where some tasks or responsibilities (but not all, nor those of all core branches) remain with the founder(s). Why? Simple. I don't think anyone else will want to pay the bills per month. Even if others donate you still have to manage those and get them booked from your account. As for specific org politics, those deemed capable and interested can try. And if people are collectively not happy with it (them), then changes will be made.
In short, I think even in different systems that don't exactly apply textbook definitions of democracy, player participation is a vital factor. If they are severely neglected or ignored you will not achieve long-term happiness and loose players. Due to that I think any actual hard "Fuck you, I'm in charge"-approach will eventually lead to loss of organization stability unless the people within don't mind it - or somehow 'roleplay' it.
i am comeing to this game from starmade and if you play on the starside/shatered skyes server you might have seen me.
i am probably going to be doing a large shipyard setup so there will be multpull projects on at any one time you can have your own space to build depending on the size of ship you want. please keep in mind there will by my own project going on to build a large warship hopefully the same one i have in starmade. the ship yards might be closed from time to time because i will need to go and mine or do other things however if someone is willing then they can over see the ship yard until i get back.
My English is not perfect, I do apologize for this.
Now to matter at hand. After us sitting on this for while we have decided to release it to general circulation. Feel free to interpret it how you like.
Discord server for Twerkmotor's closed group.
https://discord.gg/HxrcQeR
Names there are of probable co conspirators and supporters.
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England's overthrow.
But, by God's providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James's sake!
If you won't give me one,
I'll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
The point of V for Vendetta, and the connection to real world groups the poem is associated with all come back to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 - which in a nutshell was the result of a Government trying to forcibly impose restrictions upon the populace on the right to maintain religious beliefs (it was against the law to be Catholic, literally). The foiling of the Gunpowder Plot on November 5 was then celebrated as a national holiday, by law, where citizens were expected to burn effigies of the pope, Guy Fawkes and other Papists. It would later turn into Royalists vs Parlimentarians (with Charles I's death starting the Intereggnum) with the day becoming pro-Parlimentarian (Purist) as the Royalists were seen as Catholic puppets.
Religious background aside - V for Vendetta, and certain real world groups, have essentially reclaimed the date, and the poem, as a reminder to corrupt or non-democratic governments seeking to impose the will of the few upon the many, that you cannot kill an idea - the people are always watching, and will take matters into their own hands to change the political order, as history often shows.
As you may already know, Dual Universe will be different from many MMORPGs due to its Sandbox aspect.
One of the particularities is to make the evolution of the storyline directly tied to what happens in-game. This might include the integration of fan fictions in the official storyline. However, it won't be possible to make it happen without a few rules that will preserve consistency and equity among players.
Of course, it's totally possible to write a Fan Fiction without strictly following the official lore.
In that case, keep in mind a few things:
- You cant' use Dual Universe nor Novaquark in the tittle of your fan fiction.
- You must put the tag [Non-Canon] in the title of the Fan Fiction
- You must put the tag [Fan Fiction] in the title if you publish the text anywhere else than the official forum.
- Do not expect to see the Fan Fiction integrated to the official storyline.
- Expect many players to ignore it in their roleplay, as for keeping consistency when roleplaying with each other, it's only natural that players aim to have the same lore references.
Now about the necessary rules to follow if you want to see your fan fiction integrated in the official storyline:
- Please read the official storyline first.
- The fan fiction should be compatible with what is known from the Dual Universe backstory so far. Nothing in the fan fiction should be contradictory with what has already been published. Note: an important Lore update is planned for Tuesday 15th of November 2016. This might give you answers to a lot of questions you migh have until now. It's highly recommanded to not set into stone what you have imagined for your fan fiction before having read this update, if you aim to see the fan fiction integrated.
- The content of the fan fiction must not include content from another game of fiction universe.
- The fan fiction should not give any status advantages on specific Player Characters over others. Example: a Player Character involved in a fan fiction can't become the captain of an Arkship or the Prime Minister of a country prior to the Arkship Launch, just because the author of the fan fiction has decided this.
- No alien creature should be involved.
- Physical violence should be limited (No gore or similar things).
- Verbal violence and cursing is tolerated but must stay limited.
- Explicit sexual content isn't allowed.
- Hate speeches toward real people, real ethnic groups, real religions isn't allowed.
- Real politics proganda isn't allowed.
- If the fan fiction is integrated to the official lore, you accept to transfer to Novaquark the right of using the fan fiction content for promotional purpose of the game, without expecting any additional reward or financial compensation in return.
- Ultimately, Novaquark staff reserves the right to validate or not a fan fiction in the official storyline. That being said, we will try our best to integrate as many as possible, and will help writers in this direction if they ask for help.
Of course, we remain open to the community feedback and suggestions to improve these guidelines!
These guidelines will be updated on Tuesday, 15th of November 2016.
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