Thursday, March 31, 2005

If I had an Otherland network account

I have discovered an amazing series of books called "Otherland," In which a group of people from around the world join together into a virtual reality network run by the most important people in the world (who call themselves the Grail Brotherhood) to save the children who have gone into comas because of it.
The leader of the Grail Brotherhood is a 150 year old French guy with a thing for Ancient Egypt. Even if he is the villain in this, I like him because he is at his core, a geek. Because only a geek would recreate H.G Wells War of The Worlds. This is a list of the worlds I would create if I hade this guys resources and access the Otherland network, and it didn’t screw up kids.
  • Mythania: If I could only create one virtual world. Mythania would be it. It is a world of my own creation, inhabited by beings of my own creation. It is basically a fantasy universe, like Tolkein’s Middle-Earth, but I like making it large. The smallest continent will be the size of Asia, the largest the size of five Asias. Most of the ideas I will have will also be in smaller programs.
  • Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Universe: Most of the ideas for virtual worlds are inspired by the books I read. I would love to spend some time in Douglas Adams’ world. My sim (virtual body) in this world would of course be Ford Prefect.
  • Frank Herbert's Dune The Dune series is one of my favorite sci-fi series. I would have the Dune universe built so that I could go to any point in the history, between the Butlerian Jihad and the Scattering. My sims in this world would vary, because I would have different sims depending on environments, on Dune itself I will be a Fremen, on Tlelax I would be a Tlelaxu master. However I would have three main sims for the Frank Herbert novels, Paul Muad’dib, Leto II and Duncan Idaho.
  • Faerie: Some of my mid-school classmates would probably call me gay, but I love the concept of faerie. I won’t model it on the stuff you see in commercials for toys for little girls. My Faerie will be a wild untamed place.
  • Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Ringworld is a science-fiction novel about four explorers, Louis Wu, a 200 year old human explorer, Nessus, a two-headed, three legged alien who is in charge of the expedition, but is insane, Teela Brown, a nice girl who Louis met at a party who has no experience, but all the luck in the world, and Speaker-To-Animals, a kzinti diplomat who would kill the lot of them to bring himself honour. So they all go to this Ringworld place and check it out and there are all these crazy theories. I put Ringworld on the list because it’s a ridiculous idea and deserves to be put on. I don’t know if I should add the rest of Larry Niven’s world in this or just add one with Kzinti.
  • Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Place: My smallest simulation universe, Callahan’s Place would be nothing more then a small lot in the hub of my personal network. It would however be one of my personal places to go. The atmosphere would be that of a rather humble bar in New York, but the regulars will include aliens, talking dogs, mythical creatures and various simulated life-forms from my other simulations dropping in and out. There would be other human regulars, but they would just act normal. I would probably drop in everyone in awhile.
  • John Mandeville’s Orient: John Mandeville was this British Guy who wrote a bunch of stories about his travels to Asia. They were of course completely untrue, what with the stories of men with their faces on their torsos and dog headed people. Medieval Europe’s views on Europe are of great interest to me and I would love to create a world like that.
  • L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Land of Oz: In Elementary school, I loved the Oz series, so in a nostalgia trip I will put this on my list. I would also put the other lands that were told about in the series such as the land of the Nomes, Ix and Kansas. The Land of Oz was created in the Otherland series, but it was screwed up somehow.
  • Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain: One of my favourite series in Elementary school. Prydain is a land based on Celtic mythology. The series revolves around the adventures of Taran, an assistant pig-keeper who ends up saving Prydain from the forces of darkness every once in awhile. Like Oz, this is going to go on my list because of nostalgia.
  • Brian Jacques’ Redwall: Yet another nostalgia trip. Redwall is one of my first reads into Fantasy. The basic idea is that you got all these good animals (mice, squirrels, hedgehogs, otters, hares and badgers) living in a monastery called Redwall and surrounding areas. Every once in awhile, some hoard of the bad animals (weasels, ferrets, stoats, rats, foxes and wildcats) and screw things up. It was a great series and I really believe that it deserves to be put on my list.
  • My Hometown: I don’t know why I choose to put my hometown on my list, but I am. I’m not going to change it or anything. I’m just going to make a replica of my hometown. I think it would just be funny to have something as domestic as this after being fried by Vogons and chased by Leprechauns it would be funny to be in a normal place like my hometown.
  • Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book: Another nostalgia trip, mostly because of the Disney movie, but I would base it on the books because I’m a purist for such things. I’m still ticked off because they put robots on Earth in I, Robot.
  • Revised Faery Tale World: You got it. NOSTALGIA TRIP. I loved this series of books about revised faerie tales, so in this world, Goldilocks is sued for breaking an entry, Knights have to deal with protestors and Rumpelstiltskin is a hippie (that one is all me).

This is my all I have for now. I'll come up with more ,don't worry. In fact, you can send the world's you would like to make if you had an Otherland Account to me at naousshiva@gmail.com.

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