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| offtopic:oshron [2020/02/08 15:28] – Updating to new attachment format eofpi | offtopic:oshron [2021/01/31 02:37] (current) – oshron |
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| ====Claims to Fame==== | ====Claims to Fame==== |
| In the neverending [[offtopic:AH.com conflicts|dispute]] that is the [[resources:Universal Colour Scheme]] debate, he's notable for creating one of the many possible variants of map colour schemes. He refers to it by the fun acronym of [[resources:tacos colour scheme|TACOS]]. Take a look at it [[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/attachments/169899/|here]]. He has begun a "TACOS, Version 2.0" project to make the color scheme cover even more possibilities, and recently announced that he would revise the table with the RGB values of colors included. TACOS is set for a further revision and streamlining as well, reducing the number of colors used due to being a bit excessive. | In the neverending [[offtopic:AH.com conflicts|dispute]] that is the [[resources:Universal Colour Scheme]] debate, he's notable for creating one of the many possible variants of map colour schemes. He refers to it by the fun acronym of [[resources:tacos colour scheme|TACOS]]. Take a look at it [[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/attachments/169899/|here]]. He has begun a "TACOS, Version 2.0" project to make the color scheme cover even more possibilities, and recently announced that he would revise the table with the RGB values of colors included. TACOS is set for a further revision and streamlining as well, reducing the number of colors used due to being a bit excessive. //Dichotomy// is also intended to have its own unique color scheme for narrative reasons. |
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| Though unrelated to AH.com, he also prides himself on his writing abilities and has used this to refurbish articles on various wikis, participate in the updating of TV Tropes pages, and previously in the Jurassic Park Encyclopedia. He hopes to eventually become a published author. | Though unrelated to AH.com, he also prides himself on his writing abilities and has used this to refurbish articles on various wikis, participate in the updating of TV Tropes pages, and previously in the Jurassic Park Encyclopedia. He hopes to eventually become a published author. |
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| ====Works and Projects==== | ====Timelines==== |
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| Oshron has numerous projects in the works, including several books with the intention of being published, numerous text-based RPGs on his message board, Rplegacy, and several alternate timelines. | * Oshron's most-cited timeline project is //**[[timelines:atlas - the_march_towards_the_end|Dichotomy]]**//, an ASB timeline inspired by //Code Geass//, along with some other works, but bears little actual similarity to it. The timeline was originally planned to be used as the backdrop for an action RPG but is now intended as, essentially, the broad setting of a larger "franchise" of alternate history stories. Because of its origins as an RPG setting, //Dichotomy// confusingly began with its an ultimate end-scenario and much of its development has been predicated on reaching this final result by working backwards from the present-day and building the history from there. The setting is a multipolar, non-globalized world mainly divided between a few different superpowers and their allies, which includes an expanded United States, a Britannian Empire instead of a British Empire, (one of the main artifacts from its //Code Geass// inspiration) a revived Aztec Empire allied to America, OTL's World Wars never taking place, a less significant rise in communism due to the Russian Revolution failing, and persisting colonialism, imperialism, and aristocracy. In a sense, it could be taken as an homage to or commentary on various //Gundam// media where futuristic settings feature Age of Imperialism-style geopolitics, socially-backwards feudalistic cultures, and advanced technology up to and including mecha. //Dichotomy// itself is intended to have many otherwise self-contained stories within it. |
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| Among Oshron's more serious writing projects several fantasy stories: one is //technically// alternate history (but more fantasy than anything else) which focuses on feudal Japan, the fictional medieval European island of Meropis, and inhabitants of the Republic of Humankind and other interstellar nations in 3039 AD, which are told in three separate novellas set in the same universe, termed "Earth-1001"; the "Vilgava" books take place in a fantastical solar system where nine planets exist and are home to different peoples based on ancient mythology; and the "Pangaea" books, set in a fictional world in the middle of its Industrial Revolution where humans and dinosaurs coexist, which will include exactly one reference to //Jurassic Park// per chapter. More recently, he's started putting thought into prose stories set within the //Dichotomy// TL, including a short story based on part of //The Odyssey// as an homage to Lovecraftian horror. | |
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| Oshron's RPGs are mostly large and detailed ones--which sometimes proves to be more of a weakness than a strength--that are supposed to take place on a grand scale. In addition to the once-planned //Dichotomy//, there is also //Prehistoric Park//, a "zoo management" RPG in which participants play as the human staff of a biological preserve populated by dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals; //Dark Clouds Gathering//, a fantasy crossover RPG in which both pre-existing and unpublished original characters fight in a classical war of good and evil; and //Animorphs: The Resistance//, based on the book series by K.A. Applegate, in which participants emulate themselves into the story, acquiring the power to turn into animals from an alien so that they can stop an invasion of Earth by the parasitic Yeerks. | |
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| One of Oshron's more recent developments in terms of writing is an effort to write a screenplay based on the Trojan Cycle from Greek mythology, intended to be closer to the original myths than its closest counterpart, //Troy//. The story would be split into two films--possibly three, with the third being a spin-off based on //The Aeneid//--which unambiguously cast Odysseus as the main protagonist with the Trojans as antagonists but //not// villains, instead with both sides of the Trojan War being manipulated by the //real// villains, the Olympian gods. | |
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| ===Timelines=== | |
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| Oshron has several timeline projects in the works, though none of them have truly approached completion, partly because of the scope of the timelines and partly because of the writer's own procrastination and lack of focus. | |
| * //**[[timelines:atlas - the_march_towards_the_end|Dichotomy]]**//: an ASB timeline inspired by //Code Geass// (though bearing little actual similarity to it) which was originally planned to be used as the backdrop for an action RPG but is now intended as, essentially, the broad setting of a larger "franchise" of alternate history stories. //Dichotomy// has an ultimate end-scenario, leading to the rather confusing method of working backwards from the present-day and building the history from there. The setting is a multipolar, non-globalized world mainly divided between a few different superpowers and their allies, which includes an expanded United States, a Britannian Empire instead of a British Empire, a surviving Aztec Empire allied to America, OTL's World Wars never taking place, a less significant rise in communism due to the Russian Revolution failing, and persisting colonialism, imperialism, and aristocracy. In a sense, it could be taken as an homage to or commentary on various //Gundam// media where futuristic settings feature Age of Imperialism-style geopolitics, socially-backwards feudalistic cultures, and advanced technology up to and including mecha. | |
| * //[[anglo-american_rivalry_(timelines)|Anglo-American Rivalry]]//: a more plausible ATL than //Dichotomy// in which the British and the Americans never get on good terms with each other following the Revolutionary Wars and maintain their mutual hatred through to the 20th century. Unlike //Dichotomy//, //Anglo-American Rivalry// is more open-ended and will conclude in whatever year it is completed in. The POD is intended to be George III dying earlier than IOTL in a freak accident. | * //[[anglo-american_rivalry_(timelines)|Anglo-American Rivalry]]//: a more plausible ATL than //Dichotomy// in which the British and the Americans never get on good terms with each other following the Revolutionary Wars and maintain their mutual hatred through to the 20th century. Unlike //Dichotomy//, //Anglo-American Rivalry// is more open-ended and will conclude in whatever year it is completed in. The POD is intended to be George III dying earlier than IOTL in a freak accident. |
| * //Not Quite Nineteen Eighty-Four// or //1984+//: a reinterpretation of George Orwell's //Nineteen Eighty-Four// in which "Airstrip One" (Britain) is actually a North Korea-analogue which has convinced itself that it's a superpower in an eternal war with two other superpowers. "Oceania" is fractured into several powers, including a police state North American Union, an imperialist Argentina junta, a cryptofascist Australia, and white supremacist South Africa; Eurasia is replaced by the Soviet Union, which has formally added the Eastern Bloc into its territory and has now corralled most of Western Europe into its sphere of influence; Eastasia is comprised of the People's Republic of China and a neoimperialist militant Japan; and the "disputed zone" that the superpowers are fighting over in the original book is reimagined as the Equatorial Federation, the last major democracy and only true superpower in the world which has benefited from a massive influx of refugees fleeing the authoritarian regimes of the other powers. | * //Not Quite Nineteen Eighty-Four// or //1984+//: a reinterpretation of George Orwell's //Nineteen Eighty-Four// in which "Airstrip One" (Britain) is actually a North Korea-analogue which has convinced itself that it's a superpower in an eternal war with two other superpowers. "Oceania" is fractured into several powers, including a police state North American Union, an imperialist Argentina junta, a cryptofascist Australia, and white supremacist South Africa; Eurasia is replaced by the Soviet Union, which has formally added the Eastern Bloc into its territory and has now corralled most of Western Europe into its sphere of influence; Eastasia is comprised of the People's Republic of China and a neoimperialist militant Japan; and the "disputed zone" that the superpowers are fighting over in the original book is reimagined as the Equatorial Federation, the last major democracy and only true superpower in the world which has benefited from a massive influx of refugees fleeing the authoritarian regimes of the other powers. |
| * "The New Dinosaurs": inspired by the Dougal Dixon book of the same name, which has its POD at 65.5 million years ago and details the lack of a Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, and thus the persistence of non-avian dinosaurs through to the OTL present-day. | |
| * a possible idea, in part based on Harry Turtledove's short story //Occupation Duty//, with two separate PODs: one in which Goliath kills David and establishes the Philistines in as the predominant people in the Levant rather than the Israelites, and Paris (metaphorically) choosing to give the Golden Apple to Hera, meaning that the Trojan War never takes place. Alternatively, just the latter POD could occur. | |
| * "[[timelines:Islamistan|Islamistan]]": a timeline in which Islam is the most common religion in the world, and a band of Islamic-majority countries stretch clear across the planet from Iberia to Iran to Papua to the Americas to West Africa; the major powers ITTL would be Christian Sweden, pseudo-Islamic Russia, and a (possibly) Buddhist Mongol empire from south China to the Arctic, and Europe outside the Mediterranean zone becomes TTL's Middle East, an unstable collection of Christian-majority states which holds a good degree of resentment towards imperialist Islamic countries. | * "[[timelines:Islamistan|Islamistan]]": a timeline in which Islam is the most common religion in the world, and a band of Islamic-majority countries stretch clear across the planet from Iberia to Iran to Papua to the Americas to West Africa; the major powers ITTL would be Christian Sweden, pseudo-Islamic Russia, and a (possibly) Buddhist Mongol empire from south China to the Arctic, and Europe outside the Mediterranean zone becomes TTL's Middle East, an unstable collection of Christian-majority states which holds a good degree of resentment towards imperialist Islamic countries. |
| * "Greek Victory at Thermopylae": the most recent of oshron's numerous timeline ideas, perhaps as a more reasonable version of the above-mentioned //Occupation Duty//-based idea; the POD would be that the path used by the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae is never discovered and Leonidas I of Sparta holds the pass until the Spartan Army arrives, allowing the Greeks to win the battle and force the Persians back. This ultimately leads to a very different world in which Greece is a leading state in Europe (though not the most powerful in the world) alongside many other different countries; it is possible that Greece would become TTL's version of the Roman Empire, occupying much of the Mediterranean before being forced back and sacked by various barbarian tribes. | |
| * //Extraordinary!//: aside from //Dichotomy//, this is probably the largest of Oshron's projects. Inspired by Alan Moore's //League of Extraordinary Gentlemen// comic, it's a massive crossover of all published fiction--going a step further than Moore by going outside public domain content by virtue of not being published itself. Though discussed on AH.com's message board, the whole project is too big to post there and [[http://extraordinarygum.weebly.com/|has its own site]] instead. | Aside from dedicated alternate timelines, Oshron also has numerous other writing projects, including: |
| | * "Beginnings": the first serious story conceived of by Oshron, technically an alternate timeline as well but focusing much more on fantasy and science-fiction as a group of three stories focusing on three different protagonists in different parts of the same universe: Princess Keiko of feudal Japan, Prince Roy of the fictional medieval European country of Meropis, and Will Kaine of the spacefaring Terran society in the far future. |
| | * //Extraordinary!// or //Stranger Than//: probably the largest project aside from //Dichotomy//, inspired by Alan Moore's //League of Extraordinary Gentlemen// comic as a massive crossover of all published fiction but which has gradually come to focus more and more on a combined cosmology and a potential anthology of fairy tales and similar stories. While abiding by copyrights and trademarks, as much published fiction is insinuated as possible. |
| | * "Greek Epic films": film adaptations of the Trojan Cycle, intended as a duology of //The Iliad// and //The Odyssey// with Odysseus as the consistent protagonist across both but with room for a third film based on //The Aeneid// |
| | * "Pangaea": a self-contained story, intended as a duology, set on the fictional world of Pangaea where humans and various fossil species coexist naturally, (meaning that it's always been that way in-universe rather than being a result of genetic-engineering, magic, or time travel) following a feral child who is suddenly brought to civilization. |
| | * a real-time strategy game project meant to exemplify the whole concept of alternate history, combining the scale of //Civilization// or //Empire Earth// with the basic mechanics and the //Age of Empires// series and, particularly, providing options for the player to take standard divergences from history which fucntions similarly to the Minor Gods system in //Age of Mythology//, as well as to follow alternate technological paths |
| | * "Vilgava": a large-scale homage to mythology, intended to take place over nine stories across nine worlds in a shared setting, initially based on Norse mythology with a distinct pantheon to each but now being more integrated, borrowing from //Extraordinary!// to an extent. |
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| In //**[[stories:AH.com Enterprise]]**//, a recurring character based on him is captain of the wandering crosstime ship //[[stories/ah.com_enterprise_-_spacecraft_and_vehicles#shift-capable_multiverse_starships|Rplegacy]]// and leader of its jolly and roguish crew of adventurers. Originally a rival to the series' Twin Fleet, he gradually becomes something of a "trickster ally" to the crews of the //MES-1 Allohistory// and //MES-2 Uchronia//, helping them on certain occassions. | In //**[[stories:AH.com Enterprise]]**//, a recurring character based on him is captain of the wandering crosstime ship //[[stories/ah.com_enterprise_-_spacecraft_and_vehicles#shift-capable_multiverse_starships|Rplegacy]]// and leader of its jolly and roguish crew of adventurers. Originally a rival to the series' Twin Fleet, he gradually becomes something of a "trickster ally" to the crews of the //MES-1 Allohistory// and //MES-2 Uchronia//, helping them on certain occassions. |
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| | === Running Gags ==== |
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| | Oshron has developed a habit of posting captions as responses in the board's image threads, and has a few that crop up multiple times: |
| | * "Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about the Lord?" was the one that started it all, riffing on Jehovah's Witnesses and other missionaries; it's frequently used for pictures of bears because the first use of it was attached to a real-life photo of bear tapping on a window |
| | * "Where are the glasses?!" based on the Michael Bay //Transformers// movie where a Decepticon yells this question at Sam Witwicky, used when big, nasty-looking robots are threatening people |
| | * "Fuckin' rich people and their sky castles" based on a meme suggesting that //The Flintstones// takes place on the ground of //The Jetsons//, used basically anywhere with a clear technological disparity between two sides |
| | * "Neat." (click) based on a line from Bender in //Futurama//, used when someone seems to be taking a picture of something fantastical or alien |
| | * "Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap running running running running!" borrowed from //Red vs. Blue// when characters are obviously fleeing from danger |
| | * "AAAAAHH OH MY //GOD!//" "OH SHI--" originally borrowed from a //Super Smash Bros. Brawl// parody video, used when people are being attacked by giant monsters and are clearly losing |
| | * unabridged pop culture and song references, putting a quote or lyrics up for pictures that can evoke something else |
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