The Map Realm is a collection of maps of fictional countries created by professed "avid map collector and roadgeek" Adrian Leskiw. There are even multiple iterations of the same territories mapped through time, from the seventies into the mid-21st century. Meticulous and absorbing.
More fruits of last year's writers' strike have ripened and fallen to the ground: screenwriter John August has just released the pilot to proposed webseries The Remnants, an apocalyptic sitcom about a tribe of survivors who raid abandoned houses in the suburbs of LA for Pringles and Wiis in the aftermath of a civilization-ending disaster of an indeterminate nature. The tone is hip and ironic, what August describes as "a cross between The Stand and The Office." The well-formed cast includes Justine Bateman, Michael Cassidy, Ben Falcone, Ernie Hudson, Amanda Walsh, and experimental web artist Ze Frank (whose burgeoning collection of flash oddities, artsy webcamery, and multimedia playthings is well worth the detour).
Following the model of Dr. Horrible, The Remnants was conceived and produced during the dark, idle days of the WGA strike and shopped around to advertisers and sponsors for possible development as a new webseries. Though it was at one time under consideration by NBC, its chances aren't looking so good. The upside is that the pilot is now being released to the public, so we at least get to see what we're missing. And maybe it'll somehow generate lots and lots of interest and develop into something in the future.
You can watch the embedded video below, or see it in HD on Vimeo.
Steve Thomas has created a series of five incredibly sleek vintage-style posters advertising luxury interplanetary travel for a refined retrofuturistic age. From a midnight train to Saturn to a pit stop on Uranus to powder on Pluto, these images promise that the skies can be yours.
If three dimensions aren't enough for you, travel in the fourth to any one of the exotic eras featured in this time-travel agency poster series by Amy Martin to benefit 826LA, a Los Angeles nonprofit writing and tutoring center for kids. Pick from one of five great packages (or take all five for $10 off). The Echo Park Time Travel Mart can send you to see megaflora and fauna up close in Pangaea, study Bushido in feudal Japan, or learn binary to chat with the bots of Tokyo 2.0. Book your tickets now. Or yesterday. Via io9.
Before you go, don't forget to take your Time Pills to enhance your time-travel experience. DO: Take only the dose your teleportator and/or teleportist recommends. DON'T: Mix time pills with alcohol, "recreational" drugs or digital pills of any kind. This can increase the risk of side effects, including timewalking, destination offsets, memory lapses, digital coma and hallucinations. Part of the "Future Vintage Series" by ~rootout.
If you want to explore the 'Verse in all its majesty, you should take a look at what Blue Sun Travel has to offer with this poster series by artist Adam Levermore-Rich.
The Blue Sun Travel Company encourages citizens of the Alliance to explore the many amazing vistas that comprise our proud republic. It’s a great, big ‘Verse full of fabulous sights to see and exotic cultures to experience. Whether you partake of the ancient, noble tea ceremony at the Companion Guild House on Sihnon, behold the awesome canyons of glass and steel on Londinium, enjoy the many distractions of the Gateway District on Persephone, shed a tear for our fallen Alliance heroes at the Monument at Serenity Valley, or be among the first to experience the pure tranquility of Miranda, a multitude of planets full of unparalleled adventure awaits you.
For the all-inclusive cruise experience, why not embark on a voyage aboard the Axiom? With Buy N Large, you'll travel in the luxury and comfort only a fleet of highly efficient robots attuned to your every need can provide. These retro Wall-E posters were designed by Eric Tan, whom io9 interviewed recently about his inspiration for the series.
Chances are your interplanetary luxury liner will be passing through the City of New New York Municipal Spaceport ("Now with 7% fewer mid-air collisions!"). Always follow all recommended local safety and hygiene protocols. This series of Futurama posters will tell exactly you what you need to know, and no more.
Space isn't all nice and pretty, though. This series of Battlestar Galactica propaganda posters alerts you to the dangers out there and urges you to do your part. If you don't have a large travel budget, joining up with the Colonial Fleet is a great way to travel the stars, meet interesting people, and try to figure out whether or not they're Cylons. (Potentially of use: How to Spot a Cylon.)
Antarctica Dream-Dollars are the currency of Nadiria, the lost colony of Antarctica, a utopian community founded in the mid-nineteenth century by visionary Dream Prophetess Constance Brundt and her husband Samuel Brundt in order to realize a society of "moral and intellectual bliss". After an industrious period of construction and development, Nadiria was plagued by internal divisions and power struggles and shortages of its sustaining element, the heat- and life-giving substance known as Heaven's Fire. In 1899 the colonists mysteriously vanished, but explorations and investigations into the controversial nation kept up interest in Nadiria and its culture, and the recovered currency of the vanished Antarctic colony has held a particular fascination for the world at large up to the present day.
A complete timeline of these events, plus a wealth of history and stories of Nadiria, can be found at the above-linked site; there are also wallpapers, samples of the currency to be purchased, and a book in the works. As an exercise in world-building, Nadiria emerges as fanciful, immersive, and exquisitely realized. Via Brass Goggles.
One of my favorite posts from the regrettably retired blog Giornale Nuovo explores artist Jerry Crimmins's Republic of Dreams, a fascinating city-state revealed through a collection of ephemera -- pamphlets, train tickets, maps -- included in the exhibition catalog for an show on imaginary lands. (How I would have loved to have been there!)
While Misteraitch shares his little trove of treasures from this fascinating otherworld, the best avenue for exploring it now appears to be the book: The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie. (Some juicy excerpts are available for perusal.)
Rêves (pronounced rev) is an island republic located in the Mid-Atlantic, somewhat south of Bermuda, between the Sea of Clouds and the Sea of the Unseen. By a majority vote of its citizens, the Republic can render itself visible or invisible, accessible or inaccessible, to the rest of the world.
Each district of Polis Poeton has its own flavor, particulars, and erratic spiritual features. It is a city of contrasts, the old and the new, the familiar and the exotic. A walk through the city can take you from the charm of a Victorian neighborhood to the mystery of a North African bazaar. Paris and Berlin, not in replica but as they actually are in the imagination, are there to be found by those who seek them.
Sign me up for the tour package.
Capolan: Travels of a Vagabond Country is an artbox by the excellent Nick Bantock, containing an enchanting a collection of postcards and stamps issued from the fictional nation of Capolan, which has no fixed home and moves from place to place.
When the Capolanian government wanted commemorative stamps and postcards created in honor of their 650th anniversary, they turned to Nick Bantock. The result is a sumptuous treasure box of history, legend, and fantasy. Inside you will find postcards and stamps Mr. Bantock created along with a book—not much larger than a passport—in which he introduces the history, philosophy, customs, and traditions of this mysterious nomadic tribe.
There's now a sequel, Windflower -- not an artbox, but an illustrated novel about a Capolanian dancer named Ana.
(Interesting discovery: there's also a Capolan wine, complete with a teasing placeholder for the doesn't-exist-yet Capolan Winery website. Intriguing. A nomadic vineyard?) [Update: the actual website is now up, so you can learn all about this unusual landless wine made with grapes not grown on any particular patch of earth, but purchased from all over and blended together in the true Capolanian spirit.]
Capolan.org is a community of fans and artists inspired by the work of Nick Bantock who gather to share paintings, collages, books, card decks, and other artworks and ephemera belonging to the shifting, borderless Vagabond Country. Riffing on the themes and styles found in Bantock's oeuvre, these artists serve up a delightful visual infusion that is both recognizably Bantockesque and refreshingly original.
star map by Amy McClure
page from "Portraits of Purgatory" by Chris Angelucci
page from "Seeking the Face of One's Intended" by Lynne Perella
I don't mention it here much, but I'm a big fan of the Myst games, including its latest incarnation, the online multiplayer environment of Uru. For those who are not familiar with it, Uru allows players to experience and take part live in the restoration and repopulation of the city of D'ni, the culture behind all the events in the Myst series. Uru is unique among MMORPGs in that it represents not a fantasy world of swordplay and magical exploits, but an alternate version of reality, set in the present day, where explorers are encouraged to play themselves and suspension of disbelief is maintained at a high level for maximum immersiveness; players (called not players but "explorers") are expected to stay IC ("in-character" or, as explorers perfer to say, "in-Cavern") in all their interactions, and even all the official and promotional material is written from an IC perspective, referring not to an online computer game run by Cyan, but to the restoration of D'ni and the gathering of the "Called" in an underground cavern deep below the New Mexico desert, carried out under the auspices of the DRC, the D'ni Restoration Council.
Despite some funding and development issues at Cyan which have repeatedly hindered and delayed the release of the game, making its future existence constantly in doubt (for a time the game existed only as a single-player game with its online capabilities disabled, then in limited form on player-run shards independent of official support), and the resultant compromises in content and interface that resulted from these setbacks, the game is still worth playing for this unique immersive experience alone. The Cavern, which houses the ancient and majestic city of D'ni (but rigged up with floodlights, generators, canvas sheeting, equipment crates, orange hazard cones, and other trappings of ongoing work), is populated with a mix of other explorers in modern dress, exploring, chatting, and sometimes performing various tasks to aid in the restoration efforts, and NPCs (non-player characters) played by Cyan staffers, who represent various characters involved in the restoration. These NPCs are DRC members and employees primarily, as well as Cyan employees (in the world of the game, D'ni is real and Cyan is the game developer that created a series of fictionalized games based on the real D'ni -- and Cyan notables such as head honcho Rand Miller will often pay D'ni a visit), and others. Whenever they appear, these characters interactively advance the storyline through their conversations, debates, announcements, and Q&A sessions with explorers.
There are two official sites for Uru: there's the Gametap site, which is a basic promotional site with game specs and features and subscription information, then there's the DRC website, which is written IC like everything else, and is a natural extension of events in-Cavern. Explorers and DRC members gather on the DRC forums to discuss the events and politics of the day. There is only one sub-forum for OOC discussion of issues like game bugs, etc., but everything else is as if the explorers retired from the Cavern at the end of the day and went home to log on and catch up on recent events there. In addition to the DRC site, there is a whole slew of explorer-run forums, news sites, podcasts, interest groups and organizations out there, and the blend of in-game, web, and even real-life content (like the cryptic billboards that appeared in New Mexico and other puzzle clues connected to Uru) has led some to describe Uru as more of an ARG than a traditional MMORPG.
I don't usually pump commercial products here, so why am I going into all of this? There are a few reasons -- one, there is more out there than just the free games and other web content I usually promote, and if I like something, the fact that you have to plunk some money down to enjoy it doesn't mean I shouldn't mention it. Two, as I've described, Uru's concept, with its ARG elements and stringent IC-ethos, and the idea that you play yourself in this fantastic setting, is something unique and fascinating, and I think it's worth discussing. Three, due to the rocky financial situation I mentioned, Uru really is in need of players to support it at this point in time, so if I pique someone's interest and maybe even entice a subscriber or two, all the better. (Uru is now hosted on the Gametap subscription service, and there are promotions in place that allow you to try out Uru and enter as a visitor for free, so if you're curious, please, give it a try.)
Four, the real reason -- I just came across this very nicely-done explorer-made documentary series that (as always, IC) sets out to explore the origins of the D'ni society and describe the restoration efforts and the current influx of the Called into D'ni. It's called "The Deep City", whence the title of this post, and this is only the first episode, with more to come. I thought it made a lovely intro to the whole Uru phenomenon, and so I would like to share.
