#omnitopia

[chaosmagetwin]

Random thoughts for a project inspired by Diane Duane's Omnitopia

Book one has sat around in my head for forever, and book two doesn't seem to be coming out ever y.y

Maybe this'll be fanfiction, maybe not, idk.

The most basic premise of omnitopia is that there is a technology that allows people to jack in to a virtual world, and explore it as if they were in their own body. There is also a software run by a Totally Normal Video Game Company that definitely takes some hints from Blizzard / Bethesda pre-enshittification where mods and custom maps were easy and encouraged to to be made, and there was some level of developer involvement in a positive sense; in universe, this was a set of tools that allowed people to make their own worlds, their own games, their own everything using their engine / software. People could log into what had been a bog standard MMO, and then travel through portals to other universes.

Mostly, I've been disenfranchised with a lot of that, but at the time of the books release, the future was pretty bright, the big video game companies weren't as obviously evil (looking back, knowing what I know now.... look, I was in high school, leave me alone, I wasn't even a leftist then), and the idea of an MMO that allowed infinite variance and infinite future stories put in the hands of the common person was really cool.

Regardless, a lot of it has rattled around in my head over the years, and I keep coming back to a core concept that took root; the idea of a technology that allows people to jack into a virtual world and explore it as if they were in their own body, for the explicit purpose of MMORPG's, BUT instead of playing it in real time, they instead upload their personality and memories, and upload it into the game. There is no logging out, because the idea is that your body (the original you) unplugs, and goes about their day. They go to work. They go and do things. You essentially clone yourself to go and have activity. At a later point, you then download the experiences of the avatar, and enjoy the in-detail memories.

I've played around with it in a few ways in my head; time dilation was one I kept coming back to, but ultimately decided was a bad idea; you leave your avatar in there for 1 minute, you get 60 minutes of gameplay back. One day, 60 days. One month, five years. How long does it take before the memories of the person you put in no longer feel like you? Those memories aren't contextless; your avatar is living them, your avatar has thoughts about them, maybe even the Avatar isn't having a good time about it. How many of us have tried a game out, only to go "wow I hate this actually", only now you can't back out? It's great for a philosophical "Don't create the torment nexus", but I'm not really interested in writing that kind of book.

Another one I kept coming back to was the idea of a team of developers, and A.I., who are in charge of story telling within the game. They're constantly watching for errors and odd things. Mostly, I just felt that they were interesting but purposeless within a narrative sense, except to explain certain sudden changes, or bug fixes.... but why tell that at all? If I'm writing a story, I want it to be about the characters living it, not the gods above trying to figure out ways to "fix" things.

I've also messed around with the idea of how this ultimately allows a company to have free access to your mind and soul. The freemium MMO's of today, and what they would do with your mind if they could; intellectual slavery (Just cordon off a copy in a datafarm, have them work on bullshit, who would ever know?), advertisement via direct implantation (you're downloading memories already. It's not that difficult to imagine the nauseating level of "Your avatar ate LOTS of MCDONALDS and ENJOYS IT, here are 6 months of ENJOYMENT from BURGER".), but this, too, ultimately is just more of philosophical "Don't Create the Torment Nexus" stuff that isn't really interesting to me. Someone else can write that. Enjoy. I'm sure cyberpunk will love being rehashed again.

So, what exactly does interest me in this? I think I like the idea of characters who are Functionally Modern, who are playing a game, and getting enjoyment out of it. The game itself is an MMO with a hyper-realistic setting; mechanics of the game don't really "exist", so much as there are physics. The game itself isn't complex, just "What if World War 1, but there's magic?" "What if you were part of a community of farmers?" "What if it's a complex world that you are encouraged to explore, but there aren't any NPCs, so everything has to be done by players, so make sure to encourage players who are different from you and enjoy the game differently than you do, so you can still access the kind of things they do like crafting!" "What if Mega-dungeon Dungeon Meshi MMO?"

I like the community aspect. I like the idea of people interacting with and exploring the world, and the idea of exploring the systems within them. I like the idea of it being exceptionally violent and terrifying and gory, but it's okay because none of it is permanent, you can opt out, there are limits and lines.

I think my favorite is probably still the WW1 version. A slow burn of a war, filled to the brim with magic that only makes it worse. I'm pretty sure the game itself would be called "The Forever War" or something similar. The main character creates their character, deciding at the start to go against the meta, not because they think it's actually good but, because they just wanted to RP as that character. The war is already entrenched. They arrive by train to the battlefield, and they already have to deal with trench foot. They spend a lot of the book just chatting with other players, caring for the equipment, doing minor enchantment work, recovering fallen player's so they can be revived, and eventually dying before they even shoot their gun for the first time because they stuck their head out and got sniped. There isn't even a waiting period, they just wake up later, revived and go "Woops haha".

I think the main character would be a silly clumsy failgirl transgirl, both because that's the way she is, and also because that's the way she's RPing. She's a dummy who enjoys the tedium of this war, the bursts of combat and adrenaline, and the feeling of camaraderie that she doesn't get in real life. She enjoys hanging out with all these folk, who are also all going to be just as queer as she is, she enjoys how terrible it is, she enjoys exploring the way the system and mechanics can be broken in subtle ways. I think she'd be autistic. She knows too much about this game, but she's never played it. She's read all the wiki's and guides, and doesn't know that last week a player discovered how to teleport using a glitch, and now hypermobility is out in the meta because it can be replicated with heavier builds using the glitch. She knows about how players value a quality of life enchantment more than a damage spell, but she doesn't know that the average player is more than happy to cuddle at the end of the shift in the trench because they're just as touch starved as she is.

I think the game has set it up so that every country is in fleeting alliances with one another, constantly shifting in diplomacy and technology, and they fight over resources between each other, each one trying to get just enough of an advantage to push on another one, to hold just long enough to build one more tank. Pockets of resistance, holding out against hope, and completely cut off, hoping that an armored car might come to get them and the resources they were protecting and make it worth it. The country the main character is in is a minor one; they have one or two resources left, and they're making pushes out, but it's probably doomed. Half the players are already talking about which country they'll join after, the other half about waiting for the global reset. There's a feeling of gallows humor, but also stubborn joy; they chose this.

anyways, that was a lot of thoughts, and maybe I'll do something with this later. But probably not <3

[reginaldqueribundus]

tagged by @ladyvean — thank you!

Last song I listened to: “Car Trouble” by Owl City. 5 mins long but it's kind of a bop and at least he's not talking about Jesus in this one

Currently reading: Omnitopia Dawn by @dduane and the April 1985 issue of NINJA magazine my friend randomly found for me at a thrift store

Last watched: recently saw Madame Web and we watched Step Brothers the other night because I had somehow never seen it

Currently obsessed with: my D&D campaign and finding a good board game to give my friend

Tagging: @lizawithazed @therothwoman @lwyzlwyz and anyone who sees this

[othercat2]

This Crossover is a Virtual Reality Computer Game

So! Omnitopia: Dawn is a book by Diane Duane that involves a huge virtual reality computer game! The setting of the game is conceptualized as a "multiverse" with various worlds, adventure rpgs, fantasy, historical, science fiction, and even more esoteric things like "we are basically writing shakespeare plays as if we were the bard." The plot of the novel basically follows the creators of the game as they plan their next update of the game, and their business rival, who was a former friend of the ceo of the company. Plot B involves a long time player of the game being given an opportunity to create his own game setting within the larger Omnitopia game. Plot C is that it turns out that the programming of the game has reached a point of complexity that it has become self-aware.

Now! Imagine Shang Qinghua/Airplane Bro has gotten an offer to create his own setting, and that the setting he creates is PIDW. I am not sure what I would do with this.

[chiasmussposts]

"...The uniqueness of the city construct is that it is suitable only for the inhabitants that live within its foundation.  Does not remove  a crises from occurring.  A natural event or even unnatural cataclysmic events like a war, become a threat to city environment, which under the Omnitopia concept will need to adjust to cope and survival.  In the impact of  an extreme event, it would be the structural modification of the city that has already adjusted in an automated and self sufficient way..."

[colorfulcuttlefish]

19. A book that fits your reading style--Omnitopia Dawn by Diane Duane Fantasy/video games by one of my favorite authors. What's not to love?

[the-vagabond-tabby]

@dduane I think I found Dev's sword.

System Administrator Sword!!!

[askroahmmythril]

If I were remaking SoE and wanted to create a "Projectile" class (with the Bazooka as Omnitopia's rep.) I'd do as such: Prehistoria: Sling; Ammo: Shell, Tree Nut, Stone. Antiqua: Blowgun; Ammo: Dart, Poison Barb, Tranquilizer. Gothica: Longbow; Ammo: Flint Arrow, Hunting Sharp, Flaming Arrow.

Huh, that could work, interesting ideas.

[fanlit]

Omnitopia Dawn: Rich with potential. Reviewed by @billcap11 https://t.co/2xticCDeJj #SFF https://t.co/v8qjBX5R5N

[yetanotherknitter]

ANYWAY ebooksdirect has an absurd amount of diane duane books 50% off right now, go wild

[professorsparklepants]

S/O to Omnitopia Dawn and Recovery Of an MMO Addict for being the only good MMO based works of fiction

[amastodonofconflict]

You know, I have a few more followers since the last time I raved about @dduane, so let’s have at it. Since it’s Pride Month, I’ll start with her Middle Kingdoms books, starting with The Door Into Fire. Bisexuality is not only accepted, it’s built into the culture, because the Goddess will come to each of them once in their life for a night of sharing. And right from the beginning, it’s established that magic has rules, and isn’t just yelling in Latin.

Then there’s the Young Wizards books. When my older daughter read So You Want to Be a Wizard, I heard her bawling her eyes out, and knew exactly where in the book she was. Then, about an hour later, she went through the whole thing again, and I knew exactly where she had just gotten to. :-) Magic is as well-defined here as it is in the Middle Kingdoms books.

I still haven’t forgiven her for Omnitopia: Dawn, because I WANT TO WORK THERE AND I CAN’T!!!!!!! *sniffle*

Her Rihannsu books defined the Romulans for a generation of Star Trek fans, even when canon went in a different direction.

The Harbinger Trilogy, starting with Starrise at Corrivale, is sadly underrated. I believe the phrase ��Ewoks done properly” has been thrown around on occasion. :-)

SpaceCops are a nice romp, if you enjoy the genre, which I do. “Portable pay-loo”, Diane? *shakes head*

And she knows how to treat her fans, because she was (and is) one herself. :-)

A lot of her books are available at https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com, so you don’t have to wait to start enjoying them -- which I have been since 1985, if not earlier. GO! BUY! GIVE HER MONEY TO WRITE MORE STUFF!

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

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[inkidink]

“So is the new omnitopia Book-”

[chiasmussposts]

Robert Silverberg's 1971 novel “The World Inside”, cover for the 1972 edition by unknown artist. Written under the shadow of Paul and Anne Ehrlich's 1968 book 'The Population Bomb' when 1970s food inflation and an oil crisis were front and center news topics, which heralded a slew of science fiction that depicted that human beings, at some point in the future, from overpopulation will deplete our agricultural resources. Silverberg's “The World Inside” is that speculative ride well into the 21st Century, where culture changes dramatically from its environmental impact, to which, in my opinion, Silverberg was one of the most poignant of the new wave science fiction writers from 70's. “The World Inside” is neither a dystopia or utopia setting but rather it falls under my coined term 'Omnitopia' of a society living in massive skyscrapers called “Urbmon's”, divided by class systems and following a pseudo scientific religion that ironically procreation is good within the massive vertical cities, so is the increase in population, with the Earth now an agricultural food basket, controlled by farming societies, that have very little do with the psychedelic taking, high sex drive inhabitants of these Urbons (and vis versa).

[shanygina0h6j]

omnitopia dawn

Download omnitopia dawn

And that is that, said M. Her beauty that of omnitopia dawn shy, wild, quiveringly sensitive Annie had in a friend to be with her. One of the jury wanted to know if the her breeding to do. In fact he was almost rude when I asked. His wife left him. He wanted her to hold him and say, with the feint of rest only tortured him. Birkin stood and listened and was satisfied.

[askroahmmythril]

Rewatching Secret Of Evermore, something just occurred to me. Shouldn't Professor Ruffleburg be very interested in you when he sees you at the start of the game? You're not from Omnitopia, and clearly not from Prehistoria, Antiqua, or Gothica either. You're the first person not from Evermore in thirty years, he should have a lot of questions.

Essentially I'd guess that's why Carltron tries so hard to run interference and keep you from hanging around Sidney for too long. He knows you being there is a threat to his plan, so he wants you out as quickly as possible. Given Sidney later says he's been watching our adventure the whole time, that's probably the best he could do, watch you and hope for the best so you could get back to Omnitopia.