Solarwind: Galactic Metaverse

Vladimir Halme
5 min readJun 30, 2023

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I lived in Copenhagen for about half a year last winter. The sky was exceptionally clear and I started to look up in the sky on my evening walks with our dog, getting drawn into the starry void above me. I learned how to find stars in their constellations and started to learn about each star’s characteristics. I’ve been a fan of space and science as long as I remember and have read a lot of science fiction but that winter it was like a made a physical connection with that great ocean of space and I discovered the amazing diversity and magnificence of the worlds that twinkle in our night sky.

It is me with the dog and a photo of Sirius taken with my phone camera in the night sky of Copenhagen.

Solarwind metaverse was the way for me to reach out to those stars. I will never be an astronaut but I am a software developer and the best thing in my profession is the ability to build bridges between physical world around us an the world of reason and imagination within our mind! I developed Solarwind metaverse as a galactic playground set in our home galaxy that models physical properties of the space and stars around us as well as laws of physics. It is initially a very rough approximation and laws of physics have to be bent a little to make interaction with the metaverse an engaging experience but the plan is to add details, complexity and realism to the extent that technology will allow.

I developed Solarwind metaverse as a galactic playground set in our home galaxy that models physical properties of the space and stars around us as well as laws of physics.

Solarwind metaverse runs largely on blockchain because I think it is the medium that corresponds well to the idea of space without central authority, being governed by immutable laws of physics and being equally transparent and impartial to all human actors.

As a participant in the Solarwind metaverse, you are given your first space ship that you can use to harvest Sun’s energy (Solarwind, distributed as a utility token SLW). You can then use this energy to travel to other stars, build new ships or engage in combat. The driving force of the metaverse is space exploration. The more distant unexplored stars are, the more energy it takes to reach them and acquisition of this energy requires engaging in the economy of the metaverse and in interaction with other participants.

Stars

Each star is a unique world ranging from brown dwarves to blue giants. The star is the source of energy (Solwarwind, SLW). Your ships are harvesting the star’s energy while they are in the star’s orbit. Physical properties of the star such as luminosity, mass, diameter and spectral type are factors in your harvesting and other activities in that world. For example more luminous stars give a chance to harvest energy at an accelerated rate but require more maintenance and are less suited for other orbital activities.

Most metaverse activity takes place in stars’ orbits. Each star is a world that features its own economy and community.

Each star has a pre-minted NFT corresponding to it and its ownership makes you the owner of that world in the metaverse. All you need to do to claim your own star is to be the first one to reach it! Our closest neighbour is Proxima Centauri but due it its proximity chances are that someone has already claimed it, so you will need to look further out! As an owner of a star you can develop this world by managing construction operations of permanent structures, administering and building the world’s community and regulating economy of the world that includes the ability to collect tax from the energy (Solarwind, SLW) collected from the star by other participants.

When the star has been claimed by someone, it is still possible to acquire it just buy buying the NFT from the current owner!

Ships

Ships are the main medium of interaction with the universe. They can be built, sent to other worlds, used in harvesting energy and in battle. Building and operating a ship requires energy (Solarwind, SLW).

Another central activity in the metaverse is management the fleet of ships. Ships are the vessels that move you around and let you interact with the universe and other players.

Ships can be developed by modifying their visual appearance, extending their hull, adding equipment and managing the ship’s crew. The ships also gain XP during their lifetime and the ships are NFTs that can be traded on the market.

Space exploration

The ultimate goal of metaverse activities is space exploration. After the discovery of our local galactic bubble and establishing colonies in such neighbouring worlds as the Centauri and Sirius systems, Barnard’s star and Wolf 359, we have the economy in place that puts even more distant worlds within our reach such as the glorious Betelgeuse that is on the verge of going supernova!

Discover stars in the vicinity of your explored space and send your ships to push the frontiers or to do business.

The further we reach out, the more energy we need and our growth into a truly galactic civilization is fuelled by our metaverse activities — competing and collaborating with each other, developing our colonized worlds, building economy and perfecting our ships.

Join me! Help me!

The Solarwind MVP (https://solarwindmetaverse.com) running on Polygon Mumbai Testnet is live. At the moment it is at the Proof-of-Concept level that is intended as the starting point for the project.

I’m looking for like minded people to join me in development of Solarwind into the vision sketched out in this article.

All contacts and feedback are eagerly welcome! Join the community of pilot users and become a founding member! Do you think you can contribute in the field of business development, game design or game economy development, community building, software development, art? Or maybe you know someone whose contact you would like to share? Please, please, contact me to discuss cooperation! I’m reachable by e-mail contact@solarwindmetaverse.io, Solarwind Discord server or my LinkedIn profile. Or just share your opinion and feedback in the comments section. Like, share, get the word out! Let’s do it! To the stars!

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Vladimir Halme

I'm a programmer dreaming of and writing about decentralized future.