Summer Camp 2024

Okay yeah I admit it - the THF universe, as of current, doesnt have as much change as one should expect for a several ten-thousand year timescale. It does have, well, world changing wars (such as the Tebburus Unification War, and then the suon-saelian war immediately after) but some things rarely change. The culturs of the Hyperion Federation have not changed much - they are still technology obsesed militant space scientists with guns since their unification 44 000 yers ago. Also, starships such as the Boson - Class Destroyer are still in use from similarly long periods ago. Realistically, vehicles are repalced as technology advances. During WW2, the americans had the M4 sherman, then the M60, and finally now the Abrams. The HF still uses the same designs... somewhat, anyway. The technology energy levels is one of the most important thigns that change but ah screw it heres my point:
This months theme is change. This could hopefully be a chance for me to fix one of the biggest issues I have had since the very beginning in the Terra Tech days in 2019.
There is a counterpoint though. It is like that because I dont have infinite lore energy and I dont really want to make up about 100 Boson sucessors... and then for the cruisers, battleships, ground armies, ect. Also, stuff like the Boson are (in my head) very iconic and i like to imagine them fighting the Saelian Coalition, as well as, much later, the Cypher Dominion. Also, the HF is like that mostly because I want them to be, but maybe there is something in there that I can change without violating this vision of mine. Such as the introduction of a new tradition at about the year 10k or something. I'll figure it out when i see the prompts. I have not done summer camp before so I dont know exactly whats happening. Lets get started.    

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Week 1: Get Yourself Organised

  Assignment 1 Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.   Well.. I have already considered a little above, like wars and technological advancements. We could also have cultural changes to an extent. Maybe stellar changes - some inhabited star systems going supernova (though I dont think that would happen often) or even stars/galaxies moving around somehow. I mean - we already have the Arabas System which I made up recently...   Set your goal   I chose silver because while i already write daily anyway, there are quite a few things i also want to do. I am still continuing with my #galaxy24 challenge and on top of these prompts... as mentioned, I only have so much lore energy. I think I could make gold if I tried but that could lead to burnout. I dont know, I will see what I can do but not make any promises. There are also things I want to do in various games during June as well.   Watch this space, ill update this daily. I should have plenty of time to get to the other assignments over the next 2 days.   Assignment 2 Based on this, decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!   Been there, done that... see the article cover image   Categories and Tags   Uh, well, lol, I myself find it dificult to navigate the world meta categories as to visit a specific planet article i need to recall which star system it is in and which galaxy that system is in so there is definately an issue there Comming back to this on the 6th June, I have learned that there is an easier way to organise the world atlas (now that category is called Fortrais Galaxy Cluster) without having to rearrange the categories... like... entirely. I will need to put #planet and #star system tags on those and to make an article that lists all the planet and star systems. With me good luck on that, cause, uhh i need it... (theres a LOT). (The article is visible here)   Assignment 3 Get your categories and tags organized!   Doing that, read section above. This assignment is going to take me much longer to complete. I have nearly 1000 articles and a ridiculous number of categories.   Update the Meta   Im pretty sure the meta is up to date but lets take a look at it anyway.   It is, as anticipated, almost entirely up to date actually. I have added some parts onto some areas that I thought could have used more explaination    

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Week 2: Refuge

  Assignment 1 Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.   Well.. the obvious would be seeking safety from a nearby war being waged, or a superweapon target zone. Some other events could fit too, perhaps natural disaster events like asteroids hitting a planet... i already have the Enion incident. I dont think something like drought or famine would cause refuge seeking in my universe though. They would just Teleport water or food to their location.   Assignment 2 Find a community—whether that’s our Discord server, Facebook Group, your RPG or friend group, or something else.   I might consider this already done. I am in the world anvil discord and there are already a bunch of people that have liked this article so that puts some accountability on me... also I am not sure where to find more acountability, if this question was asking that.   Assignment 3 Find ways to improve styling and layout in your world! Assignment 4 If you’re a CSS wizard, maybe take the time now to give it a polish!   Putting these together as they are very similar questions. I have reached out for CSS comissions (probably about a week ago) but I dont want to rush them for the theme. That said, it seems to be close to done, so that would probably be applied at some point before summer camp. As I have mentioned I dont want to pressure them though, so dont take this as a promise.  

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Week 3: Belief

    Now belief is an interesting topic for my world, if a bit difficult. Almost no one in the entire galaxy cluster even know what the concept of religion is, save for one Arcturus faction, the Ashe Followers. And those who know the Ashe Followers even exist. However, it seems that I do not have to discuss religion. Belief is a very broad topic. There is canonically a HF branch of science called magical and sapience science (i dont think i have an article for that on WA though). Here I feel I could do something, though as per the meta I dont want to "go overboard with space magic".   Assignment 1 Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.   Maybe something like rumors about archaeotech? random theories about how the precursors died (The starsong incident is still unknown)? I mean, with the relatively recent creation of that science branch (most likely caused by the discovery of the Phelke or maybe the Ghost Tethers on Tebburus), I would think quite a lot of strange things would become believable to the cultures in world.   Assignment 2 Create a bank of inspirations! Quotes, music, description of experiences and shower thoughts, etc.   Well, I have always been inspired primarily by video games, and I already have a list of video games which have inspired my lore in the world meta. I could also just look at my steam library. I could even look at a few other WA worlds. I havent been doing much of that but I want to. If i had enough time i would...   Assignment 3 Find art and pictures that inspire you, and grab a map if you don't have one (and need one).   I already have maps but could easily make more for my various planets (Wonderdraft). I do also already have a number of cool images in the world gallery and within my Avorion screenshots file. Not really sure how to find more, but if I need to I can always go to google images (the HF artstyle is partly inspired by the forerunners from halo and obviously theres alot of forerunner art around). I dont think I will need to google images though as thats not normally where my inspiration normally comes from... at least, for anyhting thats not visual. (basically visual things inspire visual things, but non visual things inspire non visual things)   Assignment 4 Check your inspirations again. Are they still relevant? Can you find any that better represent the current state of your project?   I doubt anything would change on that front, but I will check anyway. Yeah, it still seems accurate. I did add the Zekolon to it (they were inspired by the biomechanical combine gunships from half-life)   idk, ill finish these assignments tomorrow or something... whenever i have time    

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Week 4: Decay

  Honestly I dont really understand what they are saying with the 'physical' vs 'moral' decay, i sohuld probably ask... ill edit this when i find out OK so my understanding is that physical decay is the obvious - items being work out over time. Moral decay seems to be the exact thing that the Hyperion Ethics Committee seems to entirely defy - that the standards of an individual or organisation are lowered over time. This can result in physical decay of their equipment too, like the example where a car company only accepted the best parts for their cars when they were founded but they wanted cheaper labor and parts over time.   Assignment 1 Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.   Thought I have done this during week 1, but I assume they now ask this with a more decay themed context, so ill try to answer it that way. Decay seems to be a topic largely influenced by the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy increases), which is the same law of physics that QEN machines defy. Physical decay - of equipment anyway - might not apply to the HF, but other factions are still likely to be impacted by it. The HF, too, could probably still see some physical decay such as geological erosion. The THF Universe also takes up a large enough timescale that they might even see some of their own species evolve slightly. Which couldbe a bad thing as this could mean they speciate into like 100 different races each but thankfully thats not happening in the 50 000 year timescale. Moving on, I dont think i can make the ethics committee morally decay is its stated in several articles that this would lead to a massive HF civil war that would likely destroy the HF or even the entire timeline if paradox bombs are used (i should write the article for that).   Assignment 2 If you like special tea when you write, stock up for a month. Tidy your office, make a “do not disturb” sign, and think about any other last-minute strategies to optimize your writing space and time!   A hard one. It is difficult to think what I could do to help myself with this but i do sometimes - if rarely - refer to some of the physical documents on my desk. The only thing I can think that would help is to clean the desk though i doubt it will remain clean for the whole month. This is largely because I dont get anything to help write, and a do not disturb sign would realistically remain up for eternity making it useless. The vast majority of things i do with writing involve my computer.   Assignment 3 Review your world homepage to hook potential readers!   I actually review it every so often even outside of comunity events, but maybe theres some improvement to be made... really, though, I dont think my world is ready for mass viewing yet as theres still so much i need to write... also I mostly keep it as my own internal reference, but I will still welcome new readers. I personally think it is good as it is now   Assignment 4 Take a look at your author profile and pillar articles on your world and polish them!   Wait... you can change your author page? Edit: I have just added a few sections to it I do occasionally update my pillar articles (in this case defining 'pillar article' as the ones with the most views). I sometimes get my chapter to help expanding these articles, so ill probably ask about one today.    

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So now reflecting on these previous 4 weeks, each of these topics, like all 4 of them, are all topics that I have not included a lot for various reasons. I feel like adding some of the above in would improve my world and make it less static. (I wouldnt say its static as it is now, but could be less static). I have never dome a summer camp before so I guess ill see whats in store for the prompts. I do feel like i am ready though, but the rule I am going to try to appl is to write 6 prompts each week, or 1 each day. Or even continue writing the prompts after summer camp ends (im not expecing prizes or badges from this) to hopefully give my stuff more life. Or I could even write multiple articles for the same prompts post-SC if I want, we will see when we get there.