Orion's Arm - FAQs page

What are "FAQs"?

FAQs simply mean "Frequently Asked Questions". An FAQ page is used to answer common questions. Of course, if you have a question that is not answered here, that is different.

OA has become so big that we need a whole lot of FAQ pages to answer everything (and even then we don't come close!)

Do I Have to Read all the FAQs?

Of course not! Only those that you feel might be necessary to give you an insight or background into OA. Also, if you have a gripe about something in OA, maybe how come we have AI but not FTL, or Wormholes but not Psionics, you may want to glance through the following list, because often we have already answered that very question.

You will note here we have quite a lot of FAQ pages, so find one that grabs your interest.

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FAQs page - Introduction to OA - Explaining the Setting - generic questions and answers about the Orion's Arm Universe and the OA setting in general. This is a good place to start if you are new to OA.

Technical Questions - here we have a few more specific questions, sometimes in turn with their own faqs pages. However, as one could go on for pages and pages and pages and still not cover all the questions about all the things in OA, we ask you to peruse the site yourself, and use the search facility for specific queries, rather than ask the mail list.

OA and Transhumanism - about the relation between OA and transhumanist philosophy. OA is not a transhuman project, but it does use transhuman concepts. Never heard of transhumanism, the singularity and the rest? Well, take a peek here then!

Miscellaneous Questions - Miscellaneous questions about the setting or the project that don't really fit in any of the other categories, a bit too specific to be intro, a bit too generic to be specific technical questions!

Why are certain things excluded? - Ok, chances are that you will notice that some of your favourite memes and themes are not to be found in OA (we'll deal with FTL separately!). The reason is that, this being a hard science setting, certain ideas that are standard in Science Fiction, even in proper SF literature, have been excluded. In this section we explain why.

Why is there no FTL in the OA Universe? - This question has been asked so often with so many variations of the theme we had to dedicate a separate FAQs page to it - The (Why No) FTL FAQs Page. This explains why FTL ships, FTL communication, FTL teleportation, in fact FTL of any kind are soft science and conflict with the laws of physics (apart from Wormholes which are not FTL as such, simply local curvatures in space time through which objects still have to move at slower than light speeds).

Answering Criticism FAQs Page - Possibly there is something in OA you find annoying. Here is where we reply to all the objections to and criticisms of the OA Universe! This section quickly became so large it was the first to be moved from the main faqs section to its own page, with its own subheadings etc. Chances are, someone will have asked the very same question that you have. The answer will be here. If not, ask away on the list. But only if your question isn't already here.

The OA Community - O.K., now we have all that out of the way, here is some stuff about us.

Participating and Contributing - Anyone can join and become a part of this project!

Terms, Copyright, and Submissions Guide - the details if you would like to add to OA

Now, you can either go to one of the above pages, or scroll down for the

Grand List of FAQs (so far)

Yes, more are being added all the time...

Generic Questions
What are "FAQs"?
Do I Have to Read all the FAQs?

Explaining the Setting
Why call it "Orion's Arm"?
Why the year 10,000?
What does OA have in the near future?
What is meant by "Hard Science Fiction"?
What is "Worldbuilding"?
What is a "Shared World"?
How does Orion's Arm differ from other "Space Opera"?
What is the OA position on souls, life after death, the existence of God, etc?
Why aren't humans in charge in the setting?
There are some spelling mistakes
What happens when history overtakes the timeline?

OA and Transhumanism
What is the Singularity?
What is Transhumanism?
What is meant by Pessimistic Transhumanism?
How does Orion's Arm differ from Transhumanism?

Technical Questions
I've received conflicting views about people living long periods of time....what's the Orion's Arm take on this?
What happens to the Soul during Uploading?
If the attainment of superhuman intelligence and power is open to all, why don't all sapients automatically ascend?
What is the difference between 'ascension' and 'transcension'?
Within the setting anti-biological (ahuman) AI polities are said to exploit biological sophonts (bionts). What could they possibly gain?
Why are the superhuman AIs so benevolent? If baseline-equivalent sophonts and other sentient life forms are little more than bacteria to them, why do they care about them? What do they hope to gain?

Why are certain things excluded?
Have any of you thought about other dimensions?
Surely excluding humanoid aliens makes the galaxy less creative, and put limits on the range of alien types?
Do you think adding more alien races to the setting would make it more interesting?
Why is there no psionics in this setting?
Why don't you have artificial gravity?
New discoveries in science are being made all the time. Surely in the future there will be many new and to us unknown physical forces that will be utilised with advanced technology?
Why is there no Time Travel into the Past in the OA Universe?
Why is there no FTL in the OA Universe?
Why do you allow wormholes, and the exotic materials used to create them, but do not allow FTL or even "hyperspace"?
Why do you allow wormholes, but not warp drive? Both are possible with exotic matter.
With warp drive you never leave your own light cone, so why do you say that a warp drive will create a paradox?
Why can't you use clarketech for FTL?
Why not use quantum entanglement to create an FTL communication system?
Why not explain FTL in terms of imaginary mass?

Answering Criticisms

Space Opera, and the setting in general
What is the good of describing your setting as a "Space Opera" if you leave out all the fun space opera elements like FTL and humanoid aliens?
Why do you arbitrarily accept some ideas without justification, and refuse others?
Why do you accept AI as a bygone conclusion, despite the objections of many philosophers and psychologists?
This site seems very derivative. You take ideas like singularity, uplift, copy, splice, and others directly from other much more original universes created by a variety of authors.
You seem to believe you are better than other franchises, with an attitude of elitism.

Science, Technology, and "Hard Sci Fi"
How do you know that nanotechnology (apart from biological organisms) is even possible?
Don't you think that nanotechnology is a tired cliché in science fiction?
What about articles in Scientific American refuting the possibility of assembler-type nanotechnology?
A reactionless drive is silly; it's something for nothing.
How can you be "hard sci-fi" and yet have speculative science like wormholes and assembler nanotechnology?

Social Sciences
Why does the OAUP objectively claim that we will allow ourselves to be ruled by machines? Surely society will restrain AIs from rebellion?
Isn't the emphasis on memetics misplaced, and memetics simply a bad metaphor?
The societies you present are dictated by human organizational behaviour, as is evident in the religions and economics of such societies. This suggests that the very foundation of the concepts of Orion's Arm are moot, since they are all baseline-human based.

Toposophic Levels
Why does it seem you have watered down normal humans to make the advanced capabilities of the transapients manageable?
It seems that the OA setting seriously underestimates humans. The analogy of the relationships between humans and transapients as being like the relationship between amoebas and humans isn't applicable because humans are intelligent and capable of technological innovating and adapting, unlike amoebas.

AIs, Transapients and Archailects
What makes you think AI is possible, or if it is, is easily attainable?
Can humans design and build advanced AIs?
Doesn't it seem far-fetched to have Computer Intellects (AIs) taking over from humanity?
Why would you want to build a sentient evolving AI that would inevitably supplant you?
How can you be "hard science" and yet have AI Gods?
If the AI Gods are so advanced why would they bother taking up the roles of gods in the first place?
What difference is there between having Terragen-derived Archailects, and having god-like alien intelligences or literal supernatural intelligences doing the same thing?
The 'transapients' don't impress me at all; we constantly hear how very superior they are in thought, but we are given almost no benchmarks. It reads like propaganda

The Civilized Galaxy
If the AIs and Transapients are in control, why doesn't humanity rebel and regain its freedom?
Surely government by a transingularity beings means loss of freedoms for those sentients under them?
Doesn't this setting have the ruling powers modifying the human species to stop striving to better themselves and instead strive to pleasure themselves?

The Place of Humanity
I have a problem with Orion's Arm and transhuman scifi in general - the fact that human beings are obsolete.
Isn't the idea of humans worshipping AIs blasphemous?
Isn't a setting with humankind beneath (and subject to) AIs and other transapients profoundly anti-humanist?
I find a setting with humans as at best pampered pets and at worst vermin grabbing for scraps under their transapient or archailect masters as something not at all appealing
I don't want to write about a human leech affixed firmly to the generosity of some transapient. That's boring to me.
The biggest weakness of your setting is that there is no compelling need for any baseline humans.
It seems to me that all OA is really only about is the archai who were running the show.

Prophecy or Fiction?
How do you know the things you describe will even happen?
How can you attempt to predict a future governed by intelligence that is beyond human?
How can you claim to be scientifically plausible, and then make wild propositions about god-like archailects and the rest? Isn't speculating on a post-singularity future a contradiction in terms?
OA  is based on hard science accumulated by human intelligence alone up to the present. How do we know that the current known laws of physics (by baseline humans) will have any merit 10,000 years in the future?
Your extrapolation of current human knowledge is linear, when in fact it should be exponential, since the whole concept of a technological singularity is based on exponential growth - something the human intellect was never good at predicting.
I suspect things could change a much as OA depicts in just 1000 years, not 1000 decades, and maybe even 1000 months if my nano-hopes pan out.
It seems that many people who have added extensively to this setting don't see it so much as fiction but as near prophecy.

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