05-15-2018, 12:36 AM
Hi There - Welcome to OA
As Rynn says, adjusting the current convention about the 'present day' of the OA timeline would be a potentially major decision that would need a good reason and some amount of discussion. While the policy around that is not necessarily 'set in magmatter and shall not be changed for any reason' (we don't really have a whole lot of that kind of thing)- it is something that we would be unlikely to change on a whim. That said, if someone (possibly yourself) were to present us with some really compelling reasons to make such a change such that our imaginations and enthusiasm were turned toward such a project we might take it on.
Alternatively, we might also look at ways to fit your ideas into the setting in ways that don't make major changes to the current set up. Not to toot our own horn, but we have a lot of experience with that kind of thing. I obviously can't make any promises at this early point in the discussion, but if you can give us some examples of the sort of things you have in mind, we can certainly give them some consideration and discussion, whether in terms of 'fitting them in with a few minor adjustments' or even adjusting the OA dating itself.
Regarding your question/thoughts on encryption - I have some (very much not an expert) thoughts on this, but don't have time to go into them now (taking a quick break from work atm). In a nutshell, I can say the following:
a) Historically OA hasn't done much with the idea of encryption for the simple reason that it is not an area that any of our members have ever indicated they know much about (for all I know we have dozens of professional encryption experts among the membership, but if so they aren't talking
). If the area of encryption is of interest to you and something you would like to contribute to the setting, we would be very positively interested in that.
b) If, as part of such contributions, it became necessary to retcon the article on the Omega Key, that is quite doable (speaking as both one of 'the management' and the co-author of the article here).
c) Regarding the details of what kind of setting OA is (or might want to be) re the encryption scenarios you mention, I don't have enough info/knowledge/time to say atm, but will aim to look at this in more depth and bounce it up against our current Canon (and probably ask you some questions to help me wrap my head around this before we're done). Off the top of my head, we have one story - Dragon's Teeth by Adam Getchell that refers to an encryption device of sorts toward the end of the story. It is described as something that even the S6 cannot break - at least in this universe. If you'd like to give it a read thru - either the whole story or just the latter sections - to see how this might fit with the scenarios you present - that might be a start toward a discussion on our 'current state' in this area.
d) Re the archai being able to do even more superhuman things with certain types of encryption scenarios/abilities - Do tell us more - we are always interested in making the archai even more superhuman in a real world/real science based way.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the above, please don't hesitate to post them. Looking forward to what sounds like it could be some very interesting and productive future discussions.
Hope this helps and once again: Welcome to OA!
Todd
As Rynn says, adjusting the current convention about the 'present day' of the OA timeline would be a potentially major decision that would need a good reason and some amount of discussion. While the policy around that is not necessarily 'set in magmatter and shall not be changed for any reason' (we don't really have a whole lot of that kind of thing)- it is something that we would be unlikely to change on a whim. That said, if someone (possibly yourself) were to present us with some really compelling reasons to make such a change such that our imaginations and enthusiasm were turned toward such a project we might take it on.
Alternatively, we might also look at ways to fit your ideas into the setting in ways that don't make major changes to the current set up. Not to toot our own horn, but we have a lot of experience with that kind of thing. I obviously can't make any promises at this early point in the discussion, but if you can give us some examples of the sort of things you have in mind, we can certainly give them some consideration and discussion, whether in terms of 'fitting them in with a few minor adjustments' or even adjusting the OA dating itself.
Regarding your question/thoughts on encryption - I have some (very much not an expert) thoughts on this, but don't have time to go into them now (taking a quick break from work atm). In a nutshell, I can say the following:
a) Historically OA hasn't done much with the idea of encryption for the simple reason that it is not an area that any of our members have ever indicated they know much about (for all I know we have dozens of professional encryption experts among the membership, but if so they aren't talking
). If the area of encryption is of interest to you and something you would like to contribute to the setting, we would be very positively interested in that.b) If, as part of such contributions, it became necessary to retcon the article on the Omega Key, that is quite doable (speaking as both one of 'the management' and the co-author of the article here).
c) Regarding the details of what kind of setting OA is (or might want to be) re the encryption scenarios you mention, I don't have enough info/knowledge/time to say atm, but will aim to look at this in more depth and bounce it up against our current Canon (and probably ask you some questions to help me wrap my head around this before we're done). Off the top of my head, we have one story - Dragon's Teeth by Adam Getchell that refers to an encryption device of sorts toward the end of the story. It is described as something that even the S6 cannot break - at least in this universe. If you'd like to give it a read thru - either the whole story or just the latter sections - to see how this might fit with the scenarios you present - that might be a start toward a discussion on our 'current state' in this area.
d) Re the archai being able to do even more superhuman things with certain types of encryption scenarios/abilities - Do tell us more - we are always interested in making the archai even more superhuman in a real world/real science based way.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the above, please don't hesitate to post them. Looking forward to what sounds like it could be some very interesting and productive future discussions.
Hope this helps and once again: Welcome to OA!
Todd