Hello lains, this thread is for 1998AD, a community project that we're working on. Come join us on freenode #1998AD. We've got a few artists and writers already, and if you have some ideas to contribute we'll be happy to listen.
Here's the original /diy/ post:
https://lainchan.org/diy/res/398.html#q921"I had a pretty /cyb/ idea for a project that we could possibly work on together. Making some fiction, art, or multimedia stuff. I was basically thinking about some of Google's projects and what their possible long term goals could be. I ended up connecting the dots in a kind of plausible way.
The idea is centered on Fiber being a plan to create infrastructure to leverage software as a service. Google will buy out industry standard software companies and incorporate photoshop, autodesk, maya, etc. into the Google drive suite. With the 1GB/s throughput, all the software can execute nearly entirely server-side, making for uncrackable DRM. Because of this, having a good computer is now obsolete. All you need is a cheap chromebook to connect to software services. At this point Microsoft and Apple have pretty much had their market niche desecrated, and are acquired as subsidiaries. Intel and AMD quickly follow suit, since the only people who need good processors are developers and engineers. At this bleak point it looks like Google has an absolute monopoly in the tech market, and will probably just keep growing. Facebook and other social media are likely targets. Letting imagination run wild, I can imagine a Google Party running for office in the US. We've basically set the stage for a cyber-punk dystopia within the next 25 years.
There are tons of great narrative possibilities with this. Imagine criminal warez groups that break into company headquarters to try to steal executables and personal data. Linux users and free software may become culturally associated with terrorism because of their opposition to proprietary software. A sub culture of freedom fighters emerge who scavenge and trade black-market components for their machines and coordinate secretly via p2p, creating and sharing illegal software and data.
Definitely could make for some good graphic novels and short stories. I'd like to see concept art and mock propaganda posters or things like that too. Flesh out the idea."
At the moment we're mainly looking to develop things further. A few new ideas have been introduced about the setting, but we're not dealing with anything concrete yet. I think we decided that the first thing we'll do is work individually on some concept pieces. Short stories, fake news articles and propaganda, art and music. If you think you can do something that will fit, make it and show it to us. We want to get a sense of atmosphere and themes that we can work with. Afterwards, we'll collaborate to make something as a community.
Maybe someone will write a short story, and then if other lainons like it, we'd work with the author to adapt the concept into a longer novel or comic. We could group up into our own sub-projects, or, at some point we could have a main project that everyone can work on.
Once we have some solid examples of the directions that we want to take this, we might build our own canon that could be used as a setting for our work. In IRC we've already discussed a bit of this: one lainon brought up that different regions of the US could be under different levels of corporate control, with differing factions, and things like that. I feel like this would be a good way to allow everyone to explore and work on ideas that are interesting to them, without having it conflict with the setting. People could collaborate on very interconnected stories and chronologies, but also be able to write about something significantly different taking place elsewhere in the country, without having the stories conflict.
We're starting to put things together, so, if you're interested, drop by #1998AD and give us your input!
