I've written a lot about what Jupiter's Ghost and the Solar Federation are supposed to be.

I don't have to do that again.

intergalactic.computer/social/…

I'll excerpt some quotes in the next post.

"Intergalactic Social is a collaborative fiction site detailing the lives and daily operations of people living in the Solar Federation and the United Worlds. At the moment, it is the central hub of the Solar Federation Universe, and the forum through which all major contributions to the story are organized.

Intergalactic Social is an in-character social network and forum in which the various inhabitants of the Solar Federation Universe can interact. All content is available CC-BY-SA."

From the How To Contribute section: intergalactic.computer/social/…

The podcasts specifically follow this structure:

- The setting runner posts (part or all of) an official mission log, detailing the Big Event that makes up the A plot of a given episode.

- The crew/inhabitants of that setting have a set amount of time to write/record their personal logs.
- - They can collaborate with one another or work solo.
- - They can use the social network to post updates that other people can reference within their updates, if they’d like.
- - These personal logs can be part of the A plot, or can make up B and C plots.

- The setting runner collects all of the personal logs, makes any additions they want to the official mission logs, and cuts together an episode.
- - Not every personal log will be included in the finished episode (this is due to time considerations) but most or all of them will be included in the personal log feed for that setting, and the personal log feed for the universe overall.

Also from How to contribute:

That last bit might not make sense if you aren’t familiar with the structure of our podcasts.

There are several:

- One ‘official’ podcast per setting, which is the episode described above

- One ‘unfiltered’ podcast per setting, which is every personal log, including the full versions of logs that were cut short for the episode and logs that weren’t included in the episode

- One podcast feed which is all the official episodes across the whole universe

- One podcast feed that is every log from every setting across the whole universe. (This isn’t very large right now, but it is my hope that eventually there is so much in the full feed that it’s basically impossible for one person to listen to all of it.)

And from the "settings" page:

intergalactic.computer/social/…

Ships, planets, space stations, and other settlements make up the settings by which the solar federation universe is organized (by analogy with some popular science fiction TV shows, Enterprise, Deep Space 9, and Voyager shared a universe but each told their own stories with only occasional overlap. Settings in The solar federation will often be organized the same way. This mostly matters for the podcast(s), which we’ll talk about bellow.)

Also from the How to Contribute page is this bit about the license:

In order for this kind of a collaboration to work, we all have to agree on the terms through which the things we produce are distributed. This means that we need to pick a license. Intergalactic Social and Jupiter’s Ghost are available under a Creative Commons – BY-SA license.

When you upload content to the site, you are agreeing to make it available under the same license. This means that people can remix your content, as long as they attribute it back to you, and as long as they use the same (or a compatible) license for their work.

This also means that people outside of Intergalactic Social can use your content, and those people may or may not choose to follow Rule #1 above. That’s the nature of open content and collaborative fiction, and I want to make sure you’re aware of it before you contribute.

[Rule #1 says: Do not tell stories involving other users without their consent.

This is really simple. You have autonomy over your character, and they have autonomy over their character. If you need someone in your story, feel free to reach out to them, or just create an NPC. ]

and here is where I'll stop pasting in bits from things I wrote several years ago and start saying some new stuff.

I picked a CC-BY-SA license for the same reason I frequently pick copyleft licenses when I'm working on software.

I could have gone with CC-BY or a public domain dedication, but if I release something CC-BY and you (or Disney!) decide to remix it, you can! And you can sell it! And you own the copyright on it! and it is effectively locked up. The commons shrinks.

If I release something CC-BY-SA and you (or Disney) decide to remix it, you can! And you can sell it! And you own the copyright on it! But you have to release your remix, your derivative work, your transformation or creative re-use under identical/ compatible terms. The commons grows.

For those same reasons, I didn't go with an "ND" license. What we are doing is one giant derivative work. ND is actively harmful to that.

And I didn't go with an "NC" or "Non-commercial" license because I am absolutely going to run ads in the zine, and sell sponsorships on the podcast, and run the cartoon made from the podcast on New Ellijay Television ( vod.newellijay.tv/w/hx7PGjW5Yq… ) , along side occasional advertisements.

I am exploiting this thing commercially, so that I can fund continuing to make it, so that I can pay the people who are involved in making it, etc.

If you can come up with a way to make money on Jupiter's Ghost, Do it! Grow the audience.

Jupiter's Ghost [PILOT] - Generational Mice

This is a pilot for a cartoon version of our new podcast Jupiter's Ghost. If you enjoy it, please consider subscribing to our podcast, and letting us know! If we get a good reaction to the pilot, w...

^{New Ellijay TV}

As an aside: the cartoon we did ( vod.newellijay.tv/w/hx7PGjW5Yq… ) is basically what I would consider the minimum viable cartoon.

I'd really love to do a better one. I did it myself, I'm not good at that kind of thing. I'd love to hire someone to do a better job!

Jupiter's Ghost [PILOT] - Generational Mice

This is a pilot for a cartoon version of our new podcast Jupiter's Ghost. If you enjoy it, please consider subscribing to our podcast, and letting us know! If we get a good reaction to the pilot, w...

^{New Ellijay TV}

So why? Why am I putting energy in to this?

Well, honestly, it's about Star Trek New Voyages/Phase II/Star Trek Continues/Starship Farragut/ etc.

It's about fanfiction.

Which means I need to talk about Fanfiction.

We'll start with Starship Farragut (the animated series):

yewtu.be/watch?v=ieNz06w9tN8

And New Voyages/Phase II:

yewtu.be/watch?v=uybWdnrcvps&l…

And "Continues":

yewtu.be/watch?v=3G-ziTBAkbQ

These fan productions vary wildly in quality, even within themselves, but they are all entertaining and some of them (New Voyages' Blood and Fire, for example) represent some of the best Star Trek to every Trek the Stars.

Basically one thing unifies all these shows, and that is that they are no longer producing regular episodes, because Paramount decided that they were no longer going to tolerate a star trek fan film.

When you're producing something using someone else's IP, you are either doing it: With their permission, without their knowledge, or illegally.

In the early days of Star Trek fan films (and Star Wars! See A light in the darkness: yewtu.be/watch?v=wECZUuSgysk or Pink Five: yewtu.be/watch?v=8Z5t7HAE_Kw or a dozen other Star Wars Fan films) this kind of thing was either explicitly endorsed or at least begrudgingly tolerated.

But, as technology improved, and more prominent actors got involved and the quality of Fan Productions began to approach something that could compete with Paramount or Lucasfilms, they pulled the plug.

So, what happens when you build a universe in which you can tell Star Wars-y stories or Star Trek-y stories or Expanse-y stories that is explicitly licensed in a way that encourages fan productions, remixes, re-use (and, most importantly, mandates that future contributes Expand the commons!)?

That's what I hope to find out with the solar federation, #JupitersGhost and even #SEFGW (that is The Space Explorers Field Guide Wiki, another thing that will see the light of day once #JG is more self sustaining.)

I suspect that what happens is that we release a podcast about people in space for a while and not much else, and then maybe the thing grows some legs? Who knows!

There is historical precedence for this kind of work. The Backrooms, the SCP wiki, any number of role playing forums over the years, etc.

But I've never found one that was explicit in it's goal to become a world in which people could tell their own stories, and that's what I'm about.