Now, what did I just wander into... No way.......

[Will the Wanderer]

Hello Everyone, 
 
My name is Will and my first post is a long one. It is a long post because I am going to be making some wild claims that I swear up and down are true.
 
I am very excited to discover this forum. That, however, was not my first reaction. My first reaction was heartbreak, depression, and a sense of defeat. I have been working on a novel for nearly 10 years that matches so much of the formula for the setting of the Orion Arm Project, and has an identical business/creative process model. The catch is, I just discovered you. Every one of my ideas is my own, or inspired by the greats. In other words, I am taking the hard SF approach with a heavy focus on causality and the singularity. 

Please understand my visceral reaction. I truly thought my idea was one of a kind and truly unique. I know that is a foolish notion, as the discovery of this project proves it so. However, there are just as many facets that are unique and completely different from this project, that I realize I have nothing to truly fear.

I was terrified of being accused of copyright, or unoriginality, but I think I am overreacting. Instead, I would very much like to join this community. I have already purchased a paperback copy of After Tranquility, and want to prove my integrity to the community. If this model really does follow “my own” then I am excited to meet and learn with all of you.

Of course, I’d love to share my ideas and learn from you’re incredibly rich database. I’d love to share my ideas for a sense of validation, to learn more ideas, to contribute to others’ ideas, but also to draw a line. I wish to continue my own personal work, unopposed. My meaning, is that I do not want to fear being accused of stealing your ideas, when I genuinely thought them up myself. I have a right to claim my idea as my own. I just have no clue how to prove they are my own.

My concepts match yours mostly in the spirit of the concepts, not the details of structure. For example, you have provolves, I have augmented, via nanorobots, and genetically enhanced pets. In your words, I have provolves too. Their exact looks and nature are quite different as mine are completely alien.

I have DNI, wormhole networks, physical bodies that vary in shape and size due to gravity, and a lore that spans over 60,000 years, just to name a few spooky similarities. One concept that I am focusing on within my novel is Universal Convergence. The main focus is Convergent Evolution, but I focus on technologies and ideas converging to a unified method or approach.

The identical nature of the OA and my own novel, Into the Stars, is evidence that my philosophy of Universal Convergence guides the Universe. Universal Convergence is the fact that similar things can form from two, unknowing and different places.

I hope to be welcomed into your community. I sent a private contact on my first reaction, but I’m choosing the direct approach to the community. I’d be happy to tell you more about how I stumbled across your website. I’d be happy to tell you my ideas for the sake of finding out if you did it already, or whether you would not mind me using the concepts, even though some people may have the same reaction as I did upon discovery of this place. Lastly, I want to be inspired by you. You have had a lot more time and a lot more brains to develop your concepts over the years. I respect and admire all of it.

I cannot begin to compliment the amount, and the quality of work I see on your site. On my first contact, in the contact us section, I said that I would not check the site out, in some bizarre attempt to prove my ideas are original. But your site is too cool and I could not resist. I love what I see, and I hope I can stay.

My game plan is to finish my novel before anything else. But I’d like to start talking with your group and learning your canon while I finish my own. I hope, one day, when my book is fully finished and I am going through the joys of trying to get a mainstream publisher to publish my book, that I can write a few short stories, or more, for your group. I would find it an honor and a privilege.
I hope to hear back from you soon.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
William R. Combes

[Worldtree]

Welcome will!

If you start from the same basic principles of following physics in your setting, includie nanotechnology, provolved animals, space travel, terraforming, superintelligence, etc, we'll all come to pretty similar conclusions about what a future setting would look like
So probably no worries there ?
But that's a testement to your ability to think through these parts of settings on your own !

We'd love to hear more about this story!

[Worldtree]

Sometimes it's helpful to not get bogged down in inspiration by others' ideas and instead come to the inevitably similar conclusions yourself

But we can certainly provide inspiration and problem solving for you if you want

[MacGregor]

Welcome! I wouldn’t get to worked up about it. A lot of OA uses tropes/ideas from real life and other settings. So, it’s not that remarkable that it shares many concepts with your novel. In other words, there’s nothing new under the sun. OA is a great place to test out ideas so I look forward to seeing some of yours. Cheers!

[Will the Wanderer]

Welcome will!

If you start from the same basic principles of following physics in your setting, includie nanotechnology, provolved animals, space travel, terraforming, superintelligence, etc, we'll all come to pretty similar conclusions about what a future setting would look like
So probably no worries there ?
But that's a testement to your ability to think through these parts of settings on your own !

We'd love to hear more about this story!

Oh my God! You are my people! I thought I was alone! I finally witnessed the internet doing a good thing!

Thank you for the warm welcome Dfleymmes. I agree, 100%. I must share a guilty internal truth about my discovery of the OA. I made a point not to look into any SF forums of any kind, out of fear I would find what I just found.

But you've relieved my anxiety. In fact, I am so excited I could... I don't know what, but think of something.

You've flattered me by asking for more! I'm very happy to share, and I'd love to share my provolves, megastructures, the Neural Net, in all your appropriate forum locations. 

Title: Into the Stars

Tag: From stars we came to stars we shall return. 

Tag: A story for all humanity

Hook: A homeless man, dying alone in the woods, is offered a wondrous miracle; live forever amongst the stars. The only catch is that he must prove that he can.

Backside: Thomas D. Callaghan the Supertramp, is living alone in the woods. He knows he is dying. He has only two simple wishes, to see the colors of the night haze in the Milky Way, and finish his last book before they find his body.  


Then, a miracle happens. He sees no other way to describe it, when an unearthly guest arrives for dinner. He is given an unbelievable second chance; a chance to live forever in the great and mysterious outers of space. The only catch, to prove he can survive and thrive in such a way of life. 

Throughout his adventures, he becomes something more than human, he learns the secrets of nature, along with the fact that immortality is far more mortal than one would think. 

Setting: My setting follows your exact principles except in a sort of opposite way. It is set in the present, and there is currently a vast alien culture that is established in the galaxy, we just can't see them because space is big, real big (Adams). For FTL I have them use their version of the Alcubierre-White drive for warp travel. I make a point to call the method Zip, instead of warp drive. But I intentionally reference Star Trek and Dr. Alcubierre beginning inspired by Star Trek. 

Genetic modification combined with nanotechnology enables the ability to live without aging. Death can still occur from severe trauma. If an animal eats them, they're dead. 

The lore is 60,000 years long, filled with many eras. The current era is "the Golden Age." I have made a duodecimal base 12 number system that is also included in a nontheistic religion that believes entire galaxy's species will merge as one singular intelligence and ascend into an energy based state. There are tales that such beings already exist. But they're just chocked up to be stories and fairy tales...?

Convergent Evolution is used to establish my own evolutionary stories for key species. One species, the Ligrons, are hermaphroditic marsupials that appear similar to gorillas by structure, became obsessed with eugenics early on. As a result, the eugenic practicing culture conquered all the other cultures. They value warfare and competition as a result of such an evolutionary pattern. When they finally became space faring they attempted to conquer the galaxy. They were put in their place by nearly being wiped out by the most highly evolved species in the galaxy, in 3 days. From 19 billion to 12 thousand. Over the next thousand years, they repopulated and brought themselves back to the galactic community, begging for an opportunity to make amends and rejoin the galactic community with a clean slate. This event would become known as the Labors of the Ligrons.

That back story serves as support for a character who participated in the Labors 2,000 years ago. I'm trying the Tolkien approach by ensuring everything is rich with history and back story.

Thanks for letting me share! I have loads more! I am currently at page 142 and I estimate it should be finished around 415. I've been working on this book for 10 years I think. But I only ever wrote the first chapter and rough outlines. I started really writing it back in August and I hope it will be finished before the end of 2020. 

Thank you for listening, thank you for letting me join, and I can't wait to see your work!

-Will

[Will the Wanderer]

Welcome! I wouldn’t get to worked up about it. A lot of OA uses tropes/ideas from real life and other settings. So, it’s not that remarkable that it shares many concepts with your novel. In other words, there’s nothing new under the sun. OA is a great place to test out ideas so I look forward to seeing some of yours. Cheers!

You're right! It's really the same logic that is being used to generate these ideas. Most of my inspiration has come from wildlife documentaries and the works of Hawkings, Sagan, Tyson, and of course Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Thanks MacGregor!

[Will the Wanderer]

Sometimes it's helpful to not get bogged down in inspiration by others' ideas and instead come to the inevitably similar conclusions yourself

But we can certainly provide inspiration and problem solving for you if you want

You already have, for better or worse. You have great ideas on classifications of intelligences and pathways a species might change themselves over time. I have a 60,000 year lore that I created with the exact intent of having so much play with stories. I can't wait to share my provolve! I can't wait to read up on you transpecies modifications. I have only glossed over that in my notes. Yours are going to open the flood gates, I imagine.

[Drashner1]

Hello Everyone, 

Hi Will, Welcome to OA
 

My name is Will and my first post is a long one. It is a long post because I am going to be making some wild claims that I swear up and down are true.
 
I am very excited to discover this forum. That, however, was not my first reaction. My first reaction was heartbreak, depression, and a sense of defeat. I have been working on a novel for nearly 10 years that matches so much of the formula for the setting of the Orion Arm Project, and has an identical business/creative process model. The catch is, I just discovered you. Every one of my ideas is my own, or inspired by the greats. In other words, I am taking the hard SF approach with a heavy focus on causality and the singularity. 

Please understand my visceral reaction. I truly thought my idea was one of a kind and truly unique. I know that is a foolish notion, as the discovery of this project proves it so. However, there are just as many facets that are unique and completely different from this project, that I realize I have nothing to truly fear.

I was terrified of being accused of copyright, or unoriginality, but I think I am overreacting. Instead, I would very much like to join this community. I have already purchased a paperback copy of After Tranquility, and want to prove my integrity to the community. If this model really does follow “my own” then I am excited to meet and learn with all of you.

First off - Thank you for purchasing After Tranquility and I hope you enjoy the stories

Second - I'm sorry your initial discovery of OA was so distressing. Hopefully we can develop a mutually positive relationship where you are eventually able to look at your discovery of OA as one of the happier moments in your life, regardless of how stressful the early interaction was.

Third - Re copyright or originality issues - To violate the former with us you'd have to be doing some pretty specific things, which I don't get any sense you are doing. Re the latter - similar to MacGregor I'm going to say that it is nearly impossible to come up with SF ideas that are really and truly totally original. SF has a long and rich history built on people coming up with new ideas about the future and eventually finding truly never before explored ground becomes much the exception rather than the rule. This doesn't mean folks shouldn't try, nor does it mean that great stories and ideas can't still be had. But such usually (IMHO) is great based on how well it presents the info or tells an interesting (and possibly quite original) story more than it does by presenting some specific idea that no one has ever thought of before. More on that below.

Of course, I’d love to share my ideas and learn from you’re incredibly rich database. I’d love to share my ideas for a sense of validation, to learn more ideas, to contribute to others’ ideas, but also to draw a line. I wish to continue my own personal work, unopposed. My meaning, is that I do not want to fear being accused of stealing your ideas, when I genuinely thought them up myself. I have a right to claim my idea as my own. I just have no clue how to prove they are my own.

We're certainly happy to welcome you to our little corner of the Internet

In terms of ideas - As mentioned above, most ideas in SF have been kicked around in some form or other, often decades ago. We can certainly discuss areas where you feel concern, but generally speaking I'm not terribly worried on this score at first blush.

In terms of drawing on OA's database of ideas - We have some fairly straightforward procedures for that kind of thing if/when you'd like to use ideas that are truly OA specific/original in your work.

If this is an area of particular concern/stress for you, I'd suggest providing a list of the ideas in question and we can see what we can do to either resolve your concerns or come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement or understanding.

My concepts match yours mostly in the spirit of the concepts, not the details of structure. For example, you have provolves, I have augmented, via nanorobots, and genetically enhanced pets. In your words, I have provolves too. Their exact looks and nature are quite different as mine are completely alien.

This actually provides an excellent example of what MacGregor and I are talking about.

In its earliest days, OA referred to provolves as 'uplifts' - taking term from David Brin's Uplift Universe - whose earliest book dates back to 1980. We actually came up with the term 'provolve' when one of our members happened to have some contact with Mr. Brin and he (politely but firmly) made it clear that he had copyright on the term 'uplift' and that if we were to start engaging in commercial activity using the term (as opposed to just being a group of people having fun online), he, his lawyers, and probably his army of fans would have something to say on the matter.

We decided to develop our own original term on the theory that we both want to be good citizens of the SF world and that this was not a fight we wanted to have.

What is mildly amusing about the whole thing is that the concept of using technology to grant animals (Terran or alien) human equivalent intelligence is not original to Brin, but actually goes back to at least the works of Cordwainer Smith and possibly Olaf Stapledon.

For a list of even more works that play with this idea in some form or other, see the TV Tropes page (particularly the Literature section) HERE.

None of this is to say that stories or fictional universes that include this are unoriginal or violating copyright at the most basic level. More that the concept is part of the wider class of 'ideas held in common' in the SF world.

I have DNI, wormhole networks, physical bodies that vary in shape and size due to gravity, and a lore that spans over 60,000 years, just to name a few spooky similarities. One concept that I am focusing on within my novel is Universal Convergence. The main focus is Convergent Evolution, but I focus on technologies and ideas converging to a unified method or approach.

Again, none of these ideas are original to OA, although we like to think we have often added a depth of detail or basis in reality (or even a new twist) for them that most SF doesn't But re your concern above, at first blush none of these are going to be a problem re both settings having them.

I hope to be welcomed into your community. I sent a private contact on my first reaction, but I’m choosing the direct approach to the community. I’d be happy to tell you more about how I stumbled across your website. I’d be happy to tell you my ideas for the sake of finding out if you did it already, or whether you would not mind me using the concepts, even though some people may have the same reaction as I did upon discovery of this place. Lastly, I want to be inspired by you. You have had a lot more time and a lot more brains to develop your concepts over the years. I respect and admire all of it.

I cannot begin to compliment the amount, and the quality of work I see on your site. On my first contact, in the contact us section, I said that I would not check the site out, in some bizarre attempt to prove my ideas are original. But your site is too cool and I could not resist. I love what I see, and I hope I can stay.

We're generally a pretty friendly and welcoming bunch I think I saw your private contact but didn't have time to respond at the moment and then got sidetracked into other things. It can take several days to a week for us to respond to the Contact Us form. If your message slipped through the cracks such that it's been longer than that, my apologies.

As mentioned above, if you have a concern about your ideas vs ours then I'd suggest posting a list with a brief description of how you handle the idea in your universe and we can review and let you know if there are any potential issues. If there are, we can discuss how to handle that.

My game plan is to finish my novel before anything else. But I’d like to start talking with your group and learning your canon while I finish my own. I hope, one day, when my book is fully finished and I am going through the joys of trying to get a mainstream publisher to publish my book, that I can write a few short stories, or more, for your group. I would find it an honor and a privilege.
I hope to hear back from you soon.

If you'd like we can point you at various resources to help get up to speed on our Canon and the general outline of how the OA verse is put together more quickly.

We are always on the look out for more stories to add to the setting and would be very happy to help you with creating those.

Hope this helps and once again - Welcome to OA!

Todd

[Will the Wanderer]

Hi Will, Welcome to OA
 

 Thank you Todd for such an in-depth response. I can't wait to dive into all these resources of the OGs you've provided me. I really appreciate you offering to help me. I'm quite certain than many of my concerns are unwarranted. In some regards, I've told my friend in passing that, "It works because it works, they have no right to keep me from using that!"
But your example of Brin with his Uplifts is both wonderful and inciteful on how to proceed. In fact, it inspires! My personal provolve is focused more on the design of a single species as the one of focus. I had not yet formally classified it, or its specific intelligence status by name. Or what their formal classification would be called. I almost feel compelled to honor you and the work you've accomplished by referring to them as provolves in my own text. But that's an offer of affection similar to yours to Brin. I'd understand if your response reflects his.
I have an identifier I call "intellectual kin" but I haven't reached a point to really delve into. Something I do when thinking about properties of how evolution and technology will advance together more detail yet because my story hasn't called for it yet. I am proud to say I have stayed more story and character driven, but that is also because I am only just writing book one and the chance to elaborate has not yet arrived for many aspects.
Your system is brilliant and I can't wait to read through them in detail. I've been skimming and I am, again, amazed by the quantity and quality. Go internet!
Other than naming, which I'm sure there won't be any real issue as those are hard to match, I am a little curious if my idea for a wormhole generator is already taken and would look bad to use. I really like mine and might refuse to change it.

It is a megastructure built like a belt around a stars. It is extremely close. In one point of the circle, is a circle for the wormhole to generate in. To prevent the ring from being crushed by the stars gravity, it spins really fast. To get into the wormhole, you have, to catch it while it spins, which makes for a wild ride for an unenhanced human from the early 21st century. That's around 30 AT, am I correct?

Other than those trivial concerns, I guess there really isn't anything for me to really be worried about. Instead, I'll just join in the fun and see you all around the forum. Thanks for such a great invite. This is only the second forum I've ever interacted with.

[Drashner1]

But your example of Brin with his Uplifts is both wonderful and inciteful on how to proceed. In fact, it inspires! My personal provolve is focused more on the design of a single species as the one of focus. I had not yet formally classified it, or its specific intelligence status by name. Or what their formal classification would be called. I almost feel compelled to honor you and the work you've accomplished by referring to them as provolves in my own text. But that's an offer of affection similar to yours to Brin. I'd understand if your response reflects his.

Actually our general response to this situation (use of term(s) or concept(s) that is - as best we can tell - OA specific) would be to want you to include an attribution statement somewhere in your book to the effect that some terms or concepts in the book originate with Orion's Arm (www.orionsarm.com) and are used with permission. There are other variants of that basic idea that we've used with other authors in the past, but proper attribution is our core concern in such situations. The exact wording and/or attribution would depend on the circumstances and is something we would generally work with you to develop. Assuming that that kind of issue were to arise.

Other than naming, which I'm sure there won't be any real issue as those are hard to match, I am a little curious if my idea for a wormhole generator is already taken and would look bad to use. I really like mine and might refuse to change it.

It is a megastructure built like a belt around a stars. It is extremely close. In one point of the circle, is a circle for the wormhole to generate in. To prevent the ring from being crushed by the stars gravity, it spins really fast. To get into the wormhole, you have, to catch it while it spins, which makes for a wild ride for an unenhanced human from the early 21st century. That's around 30 AT, am I correct?

What you describe is drastically different from how OA wormholes are created and operate. There is basically zero overlap between the two settings on this point, based on what you've written here, and unless there is something huge you haven't mentioned yet you can confidently put any worries about an issue in this area to bed.

As far as how OA wormholes work and are created, I would refer you to the following articles:

Wormholes - A Layman's Guide - The basic structure and operation of OA wormholes, along with types of wormholes (communication gates and transport gates) and various other bits. Note that transport gates must be placed hundreds of Astronomical Units from the nearest star.

Weylforge - The device used to create wormholes.

Linelayer - Specialized ships used to transport wormhole mouths to the places a wormhole is to connect.

Hope this helps

Oh - 30AT would be the year 1999 or 2000 in our current calendar, depending on where in the AT year you are looking.

Other than those trivial concerns, I guess there really isn't anything for me to really be worried about. Instead, I'll just join in the fun and see you all around the forum. Thanks for such a great invite. This is only the second forum I've ever interacted with.

Have fun, and if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask.

Todd