[shahar2k]

Other Earth is my attempt at creating a believeable future version of earth, which could be used for the setting for games or movies, my Idea is that I can create my own universe and set small stories whithin the dynamics of that universe instead of using "the world's fate relies on you" or "you rule the world" mentality present in so many games

I am looking for concept artists who are interested in the idea of Other-Earth and are willing to work with me to further flesh out the story and create small charecter rich stories which occur whithin Other-Earth


Other Earth

Welcome to Earth, not the familiar blue green cradle. This, is an Earth ravaged by a plague, a plague of famine, of wars, disease and death. Humanity as a whole seems doomed, people are dying by the thousands, over population is a glimmering memory, and a foolish dream. The rich get richer and the poor get dead. And nature, good old mother nature, has begun to reclaim what she once lost.

This is a tale of the end, and of the beginning, a tale of birth and a tale of death, This is the beginning of the end.

Mankind, once thriving and successful has not passed the test of time, a mysterious plague, the plague prevents any birth from occurring, there has not been a single natural birth on Earth the last century genetic decomposition has infected the people, years of medicine and science had made the people weak and frail and humanity seems doomed to rot in it's old age. Out of the fire rise
the pillars, those factions who seek to survive the plague, by any means possible and necessary.

The factions:

The Edenites:

Seeking to restore man kind to it's roots, they have, through meticulous genetic and micro engineering managed to restore, partially, people's ability to breed, however this does come with a cost, a hideous figure, and infinite physical variety leads the Edenites to appear in any one of thousands of mutated fleshy forms. Seeing themselves as superior to the dying masses, they relocate all of their "converts" to The Gardens (description of gardens: guarded place no one gets into or out of alive other than the Edenites, elaborate later.) With each additional convert, the Edenites get closer and closer to their goal of a pure and natural world, where mankind is it's own machine.
they engineer themselves to provide for any purpose once required by science.

The Unity:

Also known as the Flesh Vault to the uninitiated, it's philosophy is "if you can't breed it, store it for safe keeping" The vault itself is an underground complex, the size of a small country holding millions of people, stored in neural link pods,(think "The matrix") the ccupant's mind is accelerated beyond human capacity, and is used to create both the "unity" or hive mind that is behind the vault, while meaintaining the original occupant's conciousness. There is another side to the vault, one that is a bit more individual. while all occupant's bodies are kept in the pods, they are able to exit the vault, specially designed CCUs or "consciousness container units" can be attached to any number of machine bodies for various purposes, although mostly used for maintenance of the vault itself, the unity residents do use the CCUs to explore the dieing earth, and unity itself is constantly starved for more "droplets of thought" to add to it's ocean.


There is a third faction, their origins are unknown, although their numbers have not changed in millennia, these are the immortals. sustained by a
network of interconnected nanobots, they cannot die, and their bodies cannot change, any change is perceived as a flaw by the sustaining nanobots and it is immediately repaired, many immortals have tried suicide in frustration, and many have died only to be revived. they are uninterested in humanity around them, oblivious to the problem apathetic to solution, only a select few of
them look at immortality as anything more than a hideous curse, they have also taken upon themselves the burden of recording history, so that someone will at least remember it's events correctly, however most do not share their knowledge with the mortals, and very few if any immortals have stayed within society not choosing to sleep for centuries or make another attempt at death. The Edenites cannot change them, and the Unity cannot assimilate them,
they are a side issue ignored by all.


Other earth is a view of the planet earth 2000 years in the future, where the human race in it's final years has reached the point of it's own demise, and it's own ascension.


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"Avoid needless embarrassment. Practice the correct pronunciation of your deity's name in the privacy of your own room before chanting it in public. Flash cards are often helpful." --The Evil Cultist's Hand Guide

[Sleepi]

Sounds kind of ambitious, you know how to do this?

[Foxfire]

I would be interested. You may contact me at [email protected]

[Nex]

I'm QUITE experienced in storylines / coming up with stories / characters etc. although my artistic abilities are somewhat limited, it all comes from Years of being a roleplaying gamemaster in a very similar setting you just described. If you need someone like me you could mail me too. [email protected]



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- Nex

http://on.to/nex

[Hurri-cane]

hi...

i have a wild imagination, i get insperation of this stuff, i can help...let me know (characters) - u can contact me [email protected] if u want..

[shahar2k]

Wow.
I really enjoy this positive response, and I will reply to anyone who is interested in info about OE(to the furthest extent). Although all is not documented at the moment, I will try to reply to any questions about the world, and it's dynamics, and I will consider any suggestions, as I have been working on this idea for the better part of a year, it's become quite well developed in my mind.

My overall plan is to create story for a game set whithin OE, but that is currently a bit lower in my priorities, I want to flsh out Other Earth as a whole a bit more, but I am allready considering a few main charecters.

while I am not too experienced when it comes to drawing up detailed scenes and realistic looking charecters, I have been 3D modeling for about a year and I have a few low polygon charecters I have created which will allso be posted here and open for texturing (models are untextured and done in milkshape, exporting / importing is possible to many other programs)
the images will be posted soon, and afterwards I will give out these files on request

sleepi: I'm doing this, whether I know how or not will be evident in the end, do you know how to do this?.

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"Avoid needless embarrassment. Practice the correct pronunciation of your deity's name in the privacy of your own room before chanting it in public. Flash cards are often helpful." --The Evil Cultist's Hand Guide

[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited June 03, 2000).]

[Bloodnite]

Hey, I'm interested in what you're doing. I'm an artist who could use a lil work and practice. Anyways, gimme a yell..

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Life's a trip and then you die, still tyin' to get a piece of that apple pie...

[shahar2k]

I hope to make an update every once in a while about more details concerning Other Earth.
Here is a more detailed description of the Factions of Other earth:

Unity: this is a very interesting concept for me. It was created as a kind of government project once the virus was released to attempt to preserve human bodies untill a cure can be found, once an elite sociaty only solution to the chrisis, unity began to recruit it's own occupants once it became sentient. these ocupants are both free and bound, the unity itself is a huge entity that has come to being because of the unconcious thoughts of the residents, and has no controll over individuals, instead it manifests itself as the representation of the world once whithin the vault. Each individual in the flesh vault is physically bound to it, but conciously exists in a matrix like virtual world which is unity itself, andis afected by it's state (example: if unity becomes angry, the virtual world will experience turbulent weather) unity itself can be comunicated with but only rarely does it respond, it is mainly the monitoring entity of the virtual world, and grants the permissions for the use of the CCUs and robot shells (conciousness containment units) The CCUs are self sustaining (for a limited while) orbs with a camera and an interface which can connect to a veriaty of robotic shells. I have a 3D model of one of these robots, with CCU attached, and I will post a picture of it online soon.

The Edenites: these are not as strictly defined in my mind as Unity and the vault are, but from what I have worked on so far, they have existed before the plague was ever discovered, they were a kind of cult, secluded from the outside world, and through experiments with genetic engineering have managed to completely rid their dependancies on any kind of metal technology, by engineering any thing that they needed out of flesh. Due to the fact that they are completely genetically diffrent from humans they were unaffected by the virus. They, unlike the vault are mostly not even free to move around, and are organized in a very ordered hive manner, with one fanatical leader, and a throng of followers which have had their bodies reformed to fit the purpose of this almost single entity much like a giant garden, the edenites are all part of a giant construct, each engineered to serve a purpose, both physically and mentaly.

Visually, the Edenites are extremely organic, and they each have a specific purpose, such as a guard, engineered to become a living guard post planted in the ground. Some of the edenites are even combined, forming giant machines made up of multiple living creatures (humans?) in an organic mesh.
The Unity, on the other hand, is a much more mechanical creation with the flesh vaults arranged in giant underground complexes joined by data interfaces, it is marked by similar repeating themes. the CCU orbs, connceted to various robotic shells, and the endless underground halls filled with human bodies hardwired to life support and neural connections. It is however infinitely varied from inside the virtual world, where any human entity inside enriches it with pigments from their unconcious mind.

The immortals, while they appear human in every respect their bodies are sustained forever by their condition (much like Anne Rice's vampires although without the blood and light problems) they have no extra powers, and any alteration to their body (tatoos, neural implants) are rejected almost imidiately by the nanovirus that inhibits them. There are probably about 10,000 of them world wide and the technology which sustains them cannot pass from person to person. they allso all seem to have originated from a single location in the northern american continent, many have lost their memories from a certain point in the past, and those who do remember their origins will not talk about it.

Technology in OE: in OE technology exists in two states, Relics, and current. Relics are technologies left over from the age that created Unity, and discovered the plague, things like the robotic shells, CCUs, various energy weapons, and underground complexes full of inopreative machinery and of corse Unity itself, some of the other relics I'm interested in are a system of Teleporters, linking almost all places around earth, and maintenance robots which operate autonomously, maintaining the remaining power and service systems, as well as automated facilities such as hospitals and food production.
Worldwide communication though has been destroyed, and most of the population is completely unfamiliar with the technology's inner workings.

as for Current technology in Other Earth, limited knowlege of firearms is present, and overall technology is at an almost pre electricity level, except for all the automatic public services, removing any need for people to survive on their own.

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"Avoid needless embarrassment. Practice the correct pronunciation of your deity's name in the privacy of your own room before chanting it in public. Flash cards are often helpful." --The Evil Cultist's Hand Guide

[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited June 04, 2000).]

[Transcend Christ]

Nex might know what I'm talking about, but O-E resmebles quite a few aspects of a playstation RPG that I'm quite fond of. It's name is "Xenogears." Some of the concepts on O-E resemble XG.

[Nex]

I was talking about "Rifts" from Palladium Books. Its no computer RPG but pen and paper style.

[el tigre]

Have you ever read the short story "Blood Music" by Greg Bear, you might find it interesting regarding perhaps the origins of these Unity fellows. Fairly dumb nanotechs grouping their inteligence into a collective mind and eventually taking over their host's consciencness.

I'd like to hear how you get on, post more stuff soon

cheers

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Does anyone know the secret formula? :�

[shahar2k]

heh
well people, this is gonna sound mean and insensitive, but if I read everything, played everything, and have seen everything that I've been recommended, well I wouldn't have much free time to come up with my own stuff

if you wish to make an example from a book, don't wait untill i read it, please feel free to post descritptions yourselves! you can use refrences (if I don't want to describe the neural pod in too much detail I say it's like "the matrix") and sometimes I can even make a more direct analogy (immortals = Anne Rice vampires without special powers, blood or light problems) but I will not leave you hanging with "have you played *game* yah well it'll tell you a lot about my Idea!"
in short, please people try and be descriptive, otherwise, you aren't really sharing a good Idea, you are just telling people that you have *A* good Idea

by the way, I will be anouncing an Other Earth website quite soon, where information will be updated more regularly. but this depends on how fast I can work on the layout, and how much free time my webmaster friends have... so we'll see, for now, I will be a tiny bit busy, but nontheless expect the first short story about OE to appear ON the site.


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this has been a message for the public good

[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited June 05, 2000).]

[osk]

Hey story sounds great man ... I have been looking for a story to inspire me to do some conceptual art ..that I need to practice . on .. If you dont mind. I can work on some and summit it to you ..and/or posted here .. and if you would like on your website..

[shahar2k]

absoultey no problem, if you feel like you want to draw something from the Other Earth world feel free to post it here, and I will put it up in the art section. I might even make some of my own art if I ever get a nice wacom.... because frankly, ever since I screwed my PS/2 port and have been using a serial mouse, uhm well much before that even, I couldn't draw on the computer.

well Osk, thanks for the art, it's really great inspiration, I like the Unity robot, since the original design I had ended up being not QUITE as good as I thought it'd be

The thing with Unity is that it's visual theme has to be consistent everything from maintenance bots, to combat to exploration units should all have a CCU embeded in them (the head?) and should all be intstantly recognizeable as belonging to Unity. my own concept ended up being too hard to duplicate while retaining the Unity markings, I might make a 3D model of your work if you don't mind, and see how I can work with that.

[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited June 05, 2000).]

[shahar2k]

oh, and most importantly a link to Osk's topic

the short story that will be revealed in the actual website will have to do with the very origins of the immortals, but it's far from a finished story right now.



[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited June 05, 2000).]

[shahar2k]

this is a 3D model version of osk's unity robot sketch, (see previous post) I liked it that much... although it could probably change, it was a nice thing to work on today, and will be done tomorow.



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"Avoid needless embarrassment. Practice the correct pronunciation of your deity's name in the privacy of your own room before chanting it in public. Flash cards are often helpful." --The Evil Cultist's Hand Guide

[shahar2k]

*clears throat*
minor announcement,
there might not be many more updates to Other Earth for quite a while.
mostly due to the fact, that I'll be gone for the summer(winter for you with a more southernly look on life), with minimal internet access.
but the good news are, that I think there might be a website up by the time I leave.
however I might not be able to provide a complete plot as I've promised, because the very concept of Other Earth is currently changing and adapting, becoming better(hopefully) infact, I've finally come up with a coherant timeline for the events in Other Earth (yes, osk, that chat was the first time I EVER made up a complete history part of which (the known part) will be put up, as well as descriptions and known histories of the three factions.

behind the scenes, I have come up with an almost complete history for the three factions, as well as several pivotal charecters to be used for a game based on Other Earth, I am allso looking for programmers, experienced people and webspace (oh my!) but I do not yet have a coharent team structure, so no promises.

Well that's it for now, special thanks to Osk, and Huricane, for listening to my mindless dribble on ICQ, and everyone else who E-mailed me, ofcorse everyone is welcome to contact me through ICQ (UIN 7001326) or E-mail ([email protected])and though I am more likely to respond to ICQ than E-mail, I will try to respond to anyone who wishes to talk.

in other news, it has been a whole day allready, and being 19 isn't that much diffrent from being 18

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"Avoid needless embarrassment. Practice the correct pronunciation of your deity's name in the privacy of your own room before chanting it in public. Flash cards are often helpful." --The Evil Cultist's Hand Guide