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The current lore of Dual Universe states, that "at the moment of the Grand Exodus, humanity was divided into four main political movements". The first three movements are listed as the "Luminous" (looking for knowledge and wisdom), the "Alphas" (putting emphasis on strength and military power) and the "Emporium" (believing in the power of money and commerce). Those three will have a clear path and presumably character skills in the game - as scientists, soldiers and traders. For the fourth group on the other hand, the "Ethereans", the future is uncertain. As the lore states: "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." I asked J.C. at the Cologne Meet-Up if there are any actual game features planned for being an "artist" ingame and he said something to the effect of: not currently. Of course you could say that there are more pressing issues in the game's development and most people are probably waiting for things like the player economy and PVP. Yet, I find it interesting that "culture and art" is singled out as one of four political movements in the world of Dual Universe and I would like to see it reflected somehow. There was a bit of a discussion back in 2016 about being a musician, visual artist or entertainer ingame. Mentioned was a "Dual Stadium" for concerts and a "Dual Gallery" for artworks. The consensus was, that it would be up to the players to make art outside of the game and then bring it in the game themselves in one way or another. That seems to still be the idea. But i'm still wondering how you could integrate the professions of an "Etherean" in the game in a more thorough way. There have been MMO games with skill trees for professions like "Entertainer", "Dancer", "Bard", etc. Those revolved mostly around buffing your team-mates and maybe make money by performing. Could something like that be possible in Dual Universe? I don't know. Here's some examples of "Etherean" professions and their potential: Architecture - No-brainer. Building is an integral part of the game. Building something beautiful doesn't really do anything, but being a "decorator" could become a viable career path. Design - It's still unclear in what capacity players will be able to design elements. If it is purely decorative, as in skins, that could again be a career path, especially if you can sell your skins for ingame money. Painting - Displaying artwork from outside of the game on a screen ingame is easy. Actually making unique artworks ingame and selling them is probably a long-shot. Sculpturing - In a macro sense, this is already possible (and seen in NQs videos). You can use the terraforming tool to "sculpt landscapes". Can you do art with that? I don't know. Literature - Well... besides writing a book and presenting it on 1000 screens for people to stand in front of, literature will probably never leave the realm of "outside of the game". Music - Pretty much the same as the literature focus. I doubt we will be able to make original music inside the game. And streaming music from the the outside to the game has its own problems. But there is some discussion about "predefined sounds". Doesn't really sound like the life of a rock star though. 😉 Theatre & Dance - Now here's something with potential, maybe even for actual skills. You can already build a stage, get a bunch of people and perform a play for an audience. Sound / ingame voice is a problem of course. As for movements, NQ might plan on doing "dance emotes" but I doubt something more complex is in the works. As I said, there have been games with an actual "dance skill tree", but it probably doesn't fit with Dual Universe. Movie-making - Filming something inside the game and releasing it on YouTube is obvious. But playing videos on ingame screens might be a thing too. You can build a movie theatre around the screen and might even charge for tickets. So "movie theatre owner" could be an actual money-making profession in the game. But it sounds pretty taxing. But most importantly: When will the Ethereans rise and take control of the government?

We know of various cultures within Dual Universe that arrived within the last centuries of Earth. The Luminous, Alphas, Ethereans and the Emporium. Aside from this little tidbit of knowledge, not much else is known about them. While we await for Alpha to be released, why not have some fun and speculate. What drove these cultures to arise? Who would you side with. Maybe create some history for one of them. Each culture will have their own ups and downs and intricacies. I hope they're given a proper lore/background by NQ, and I'm looking forward to them being picked up by various organisations out there. I re-found this while trawling through the lore double checking things for another project. And spent a few minutes creating potential emblems for each culture for fun. Feel free to touch them up as there are definitely better artists than me and I used my laptop+track pad. Or come up with better designs.