Offworlds: The Origins
A Brief History
Long ago, in a star system that was once our home, something peculiar occurred, forever altering the course of humanity.
An unidentified object appeared near Jupiter. The USS Endeavour, one of Earth’s only ships meant for interplanetary exploration was sent on a secret mission to investigate.
Lloyd Tannhauser, a scientist onboard the ship, understood the object to be a portal and volunteered to go through it. Although Lloyd never returned, the gate soon emitted a signal which was previously encoded in Lloyd’s ship — 16 16 16 16.
A rescue mission followed through, but was also lost. Although initially the discovery was kept from the public on Earth, the signal emitting from the portal spiked in strength and pierced through the whole of Earth’s solar system.
The secret could not be kept much longer. As rumours about the mysterious gateway spread, more volunteers stepped forward to go through the portal into the unknown. No one has ever returned. These brave volunteers were known as “The Explorers”.
The mysterious portal was soon named “Tannhauser Gate” in honor of the first Explorer.
The Paradox
The structure of the Tannhauser Gate was destroyed on the other side, leading to a time paradox. Anyone who travels through it would appear in a location within the Omega Centauri star cluster, not far from a gate fragment, but often at a significantly different time. Explorers who jumped later might arrive earlier, and sometimes even decades earlier.
Occasionally, new explorers would appear within the star cluster. Those that survived the trip would bring news of the old world, precious artifacts, expertise and technological advancements, but also occasionally disease and trouble.
The Age of Exploration
As years passed, more and more Explorers settled and populated multiple systems in close vicinity from each other. Larger settlements soon grew into cities, and news about them spread across the Offworlds attracting settlers from all walks of life.
Powerful factions and families rose to prominence, struggles for resources and influence fractured the peaceful frontier.
Occasional threat of conflict and need for control led to establishment of the High Council and the concept of “Controlled Space”. Vast amount of systems beyond the Controlled Space were left lawless and overrun with pirates, mercenaries, smugglers and scavengers.
Ancient monoliths were found scattered across systems of the Offworlds. It is not clear who built them, or what they are made of, but their unique properties opened a new chapter of exploration, progress … and unending rivalry.
It is the Year 145 of The Council, and for many within the Offworlds, the stakes could not be any higher.
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A word from the founder, Paulius Uza
As a creator, I always dreamed of a world that I could call mine. A world that I could use to tell fascinating stories, explore new places and create thrilling and deep characters.
I am fascinated by science fiction worlds as they allow us to travel infinite distances and marvel at things without ever leaving the page you are on.
Deep and complex universes like Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien and Blade Runner have inspired people for decades to create verbal and visual masterpieces that will entertain us for decades and possibly centuries to come. Fan fiction stories and creations around these worlds have also been a tremendous success.
What if there was a universe with rich and deep lore which any creator could tap into for inspiration and use it as a base of their next story, book, movie or video game?
Finally this is possible with the advent of conversational AI and Web3 technology — enter Offworlds.
Offworlds is a handcrafted universe with deep lore including history, factions, characters, locations and a timeline of major events that any creator can build upon, all accessible in a structured format and through powerful language model based tools like ChatGPT.
The lore can be expanded and world state can be changed by fans and creators using blockchain, which provides an interactive feedback loop to creators who base their works on Offworlds lore.
Offworlds is launching in 2024. Thank you for embarking on this exciting adventure with me, and I can’t wait to tell you more in the weeks and months to come.
