Hello everyone,
We hope you had an enjoyable holiday season. Heading into the new year, we have several announcements for the community:
Staff Backlog Catch-Up Month
As with last year, the admins and editors will spend January 2026 catching up on backlogged OA work to the extent they can. Members are welcome to continue to submit proposals and new articles the same as during the rest of the year; however, they will not be reviewed until after the backlog month has concluded or the backlog has been cleared. Backlogged OA work may include backend work, ongoing article updates already in process prior to January, reviewing older drafts, writing or rewriting needed articles, or other matters.
For members who are not editors or admins, nothing will change except that you will need to wait until February or thereafter for us to review anything new (meaning not part of an already ongoing development/revision process) submitted in January.
Xenosophont Moratorium
It has been decided that 2024's xenosophont moratorium will be replaced by a new addition to the OA How to Contribute policy for 2026.
Details are currently TBD, but we are tentatively aiming for the new policy to allow for the addition of new xenosophonts to the setting while setting a VERY high bar for doing so, among other things. Our current goal is for the new policy to be presented/take effect no later than the second quarter of 2026.
In the interim, the xenosophont moratorium is still in effect.
We continue to strongly encourage submissions describing very strange neogenic, provolve, xenoprovolve, and other sophonts developed by Terragens themselves.
The following two exemptions to the 2024 moratorium are still in effect and may continue to be developed and submitted for consideration:
-Xenosophonts that satisfy both of the following criteria - that are (1) extinct and (2) were bound to their homeworlds due to lacking spacefaring capability - are exempt; these can be included as part of the history of a current or former garden world, for example.
-Xenosophonts outside of the Terragen Sphere are exempt. However, for such submissions, we expect significant elements of mystery to be maintained, in line with the fact that they are being observed from a distance.
As before:
-Revisions to xenosophonts that are already in the setting are exempt. We encourage submissions intended to flesh these out more fully as appropriate.
-Non-sophont alien life, such as garden worlds, is exempt; these are welcome to be developed without limitation.
Focus Topic
There is a new Focus - a topic on which we particularly encourage discussion and submissions, and which we as staff each set a goal to write an article about during the year.
The Focus for 2026 is Warfare and Conflict.
Inspiration for possible things to write about may be found in the subtopics and articles of the Warfare topic page in the EG. Please note that the goal with this Focus is not so much to generate more articles on weapons, but to update the EG to match our consensus take (still itself under development and therefore open to additional ideas and discussion) on how this might work in the setting given its other premises (omnicapable automation, massive productive capacity, psychoware, etc.) as well as explore related areas such as memetic conflict, diplomacy, and likely much else. Conflict should not just be thought of in terms of cooler guns, basically.
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We wish everyone a happy new year, and look forward to a great year for the OA community in 2026!
We hope you had an enjoyable holiday season. Heading into the new year, we have several announcements for the community:
Staff Backlog Catch-Up Month
As with last year, the admins and editors will spend January 2026 catching up on backlogged OA work to the extent they can. Members are welcome to continue to submit proposals and new articles the same as during the rest of the year; however, they will not be reviewed until after the backlog month has concluded or the backlog has been cleared. Backlogged OA work may include backend work, ongoing article updates already in process prior to January, reviewing older drafts, writing or rewriting needed articles, or other matters.
For members who are not editors or admins, nothing will change except that you will need to wait until February or thereafter for us to review anything new (meaning not part of an already ongoing development/revision process) submitted in January.
Xenosophont Moratorium
It has been decided that 2024's xenosophont moratorium will be replaced by a new addition to the OA How to Contribute policy for 2026.
Details are currently TBD, but we are tentatively aiming for the new policy to allow for the addition of new xenosophonts to the setting while setting a VERY high bar for doing so, among other things. Our current goal is for the new policy to be presented/take effect no later than the second quarter of 2026.
In the interim, the xenosophont moratorium is still in effect.
We continue to strongly encourage submissions describing very strange neogenic, provolve, xenoprovolve, and other sophonts developed by Terragens themselves.
The following two exemptions to the 2024 moratorium are still in effect and may continue to be developed and submitted for consideration:
-Xenosophonts that satisfy both of the following criteria - that are (1) extinct and (2) were bound to their homeworlds due to lacking spacefaring capability - are exempt; these can be included as part of the history of a current or former garden world, for example.
-Xenosophonts outside of the Terragen Sphere are exempt. However, for such submissions, we expect significant elements of mystery to be maintained, in line with the fact that they are being observed from a distance.
As before:
-Revisions to xenosophonts that are already in the setting are exempt. We encourage submissions intended to flesh these out more fully as appropriate.
-Non-sophont alien life, such as garden worlds, is exempt; these are welcome to be developed without limitation.
Focus Topic
There is a new Focus - a topic on which we particularly encourage discussion and submissions, and which we as staff each set a goal to write an article about during the year.
The Focus for 2026 is Warfare and Conflict.
Inspiration for possible things to write about may be found in the subtopics and articles of the Warfare topic page in the EG. Please note that the goal with this Focus is not so much to generate more articles on weapons, but to update the EG to match our consensus take (still itself under development and therefore open to additional ideas and discussion) on how this might work in the setting given its other premises (omnicapable automation, massive productive capacity, psychoware, etc.) as well as explore related areas such as memetic conflict, diplomacy, and likely much else. Conflict should not just be thought of in terms of cooler guns, basically.
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We wish everyone a happy new year, and look forward to a great year for the OA community in 2026!
Introverts of the World - Unite! Separately....In our own homes.