Orion's Arm
This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2014) |
Available in | English |
---|---|
Owner | Orion's Arm Universe Project, Inc. |
Created by | M. Alan Kazlev Donna Malcolm Hirsekorn Bernd Helfert Anders Sandberg |
URL | www |
Launched | 2000 |
Orion's Arm (also called the Orion's Arm Universe Project, OAUP, or simply OA and formerly known as the Orion's Arm Worldbuilding Group) is a multi-authored online
A
The first published Orion's Arm book, a collection of five novellas set within the OA universe, called Against a Diamond Sky,[7] was released in September 2009 by Outskirts Press.[8] The second published Orion's Arm book, called After Tranquility, was released in February 2014.[9][10]
Setting
The fictional history of the OA setting spans over 10,000 years, beginning with the real-world present day; dates in OA are marked according to the Tranquility Calendar (which is named after Tranquility Base and started after the Apollo 11 landing). OA claims to adhere to plausible, or "hard" science fiction; that is, there are no human-like aliens, no literal faster-than-light travel or other violations of the known laws of physics, and no "naval analogy" space battles. Certain speculative technologies, such as the creation of "negative mass" (averaged null energy condition-violating) exotic matter and the manipulation of strange forms of matter, such as magnetic monopoles and Q-balls, on length scales much smaller than that of an atom, strong artificial intelligence and artificial life appear in the setting, distinguishing it from "ultra-hard" science fiction (which assumes only technologies proven to be possible at the time it is written).
The largest and most advanced polities in the setting are the sixteen "Sephirotic Empires," so named due to their loose correlation with the archetypes of ancient
Although generally considered to offer the highest degree of safety and quality of life in the civilized galaxy, the Sephirotics themselves are essentially benign dictatorships; their citizens are subject to mass surveillance with a utility fog-based technology called "angelnetting", and the local transapient usually can go through the data gathered in this way to review nearly every social interaction that has ever occurred in the polity. Angelnetting, where it allows civilian weapons, restricts their use. Like most contemporary technology, weapons often have some degree of sentience.
Outside the "ultra-civilized" sephirotic regions, there is the periphery, which is described as relatively lawless and as having some brutal dictatorships. Carrying
Outside of both of these regions, there is the Seams, a civilization of civilizations with vastly different values, but are generally more chaotic and free than sephirotic life.
Extraterrestrial life exists, but the focus of the setting is on the descendants and creations of Earth life, collectively called "terragen life". Normal humans, called "baselines", are an endangered species. Their genetically and cybernetically enhanced descendants have supplanted them.
There are many types of intelligent life: nearbaselines (enhanced humans),
OA is a part of the
Prominent theoretical technologies
Technologies that feature prominently in the Orion's Arm setting include:
- Advanced nanotechnology able to manipulate matter.
- Extremely advanced artificial intelligences possessing vast superintelligence.
- Space megastructures.
- Production and manipulation of averaged null energy condition-violating negative stress energy quantum field fluctuations, for use in reactionless space drives and wormholes.
- Stable wormholes, allowing apparent faster-than-light travel between star systems, though they must be transported to the systems at sublight speeds (with physical limitations intended to prevent time travel).
- Several types of reactionless sublight space drive, including almost all of the types described by NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, though in the setting most of these are in the process of being replaced by various space drives, including Displacement, Halo, and Void drives, which are themselves based upon the ESAA/Van den Broeck metric solution to the Alcubierre/Natario warp drive.
Prominent theoretical artifacts
Types of megastructure that feature prominently in the Orion's Arm setting include:
- Dyson spheres (shells around stars), both swarm-based and dynamically supported.
- AU).
- Halo.
- Complex orbital ring variants (suprastellar and supraplanetary shells) that perform functions similar to Dyson spheres.
- Shellworlds
- Topopoli
Types of nanotechnology-based artifact include:
- Utility fog (swarms of microscale robots that act as a reconfigurable bulk material).
- Disassembler swarms (nanorobotsthat dismantle hostile craft/objects).
- Angelnets / Demonnets / Guardwebs (mind uploading in the case of severe accidents, that provides backup copies in addition to its holodeck-like uses).
Other noteworthy artifacts are usually unique items whose principles of operation are unknowable to "baseline" humans (named Clarketech, after Clarke's third law).
Reception
Orion's Arm has been reviewed in the role-playing magazine Knights of the Dinner Table,[13] as well as on Boing Boing by transhumanist science fiction author Cory Doctorow.[14]
References to the Encyclopaedia Galactica have been made in a book on overcoming Librarian stereotypes.[15]
The Orion's Arm website has also been recommended in a children's teaching guide.[16]
The Orion's Arm perspective on wormholes has been discussed in various science fiction forums outside the group's own mailing lists, including mention on hardsf
See also
- Collaborative fiction
- Eclipse Phase
- Transhuman Space
- Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur novel trilogy: The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince and The Causal Angel
References
- ^ "Orion's Arm - The Early Years". Orionsarm.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Orion's Arm – The Beginning (Part 1) « Voices/Future Tense". Voicesoa.net. 2006-02-28. Archived from the original on 2008-07-24. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups". Groups.yahoo.com. 2000-06-05. Archived from the original on July 19, 2012. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Voices/Future Tense". Voicesoa.net. 2012-12-22. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Orion's Arm - Orion's Arm Celestia Addons". Orionsarm.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Orion's Arm". Helfert.de. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ISBN 978-1432740993
- ^ "Outskirts Press announces Against A Diamond Sky from VA author The Orion's Arm Universe Project. - Outskirts Press, Inc". PRLog.org. 2009-09-13. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "The Orion's Arm Universe Project Forums". Orionsarm.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Orion's Arm - Latest Updates". Orionsarm.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Civilized Galaxy - Sephirotic Empires". Orionsarm.com. Retrieved 2003-04-23.
- ^ "Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering: Open Air Space Habitats". Iase.cc. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ Kenneth Newquist, Plunder Free RPGs on the Web, Knights of the Dinner Table #92, June 2004, p.66
- ^ Cory Doctorow (2005-08-17). "Orion's Arm: CC-licensed, post-Singularity shared world / Boing Boing". Boingboing.net. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ISBN 978-1-57387-366-6p.118
- ISBN 978-1-86509-917-0
- ^ "SF Tech: Wormholes: Morris-Thorne Wormhole / Space Tunnel". Hard SF. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- ^ "Wormhole Engineering in Orion's Arm: An Overview" (PDF). Github.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.