BUYING A TICKET
First, buy a ticket to one of the imaginary space voyages from the Voyage Board. You can sign in with email or through MetaMask.
Questions? Check out the FAQs on Signing in and Purchasing a Voyage.
This is a browser-based storytelling experience, where you buy a ticket to an imaginary space voyage to a nearby exoplanet and get a unique, 30-day story.
IMAGINARY VOYAGES
The year is 2073. And we now know that the galaxy is teeming with alien life. We have developed faster-than-light (FTL) technology to provide “jumps” to distant coordinates in space. These new spaceships are expensive, experimental and ready to launch. We are looking for crew members and space tourists to see what distant exoplanets have to show us.
We will be launching several voyages over the next few years, these include
Rogue45: A private 8-day voyage to a rouge exoplanet without a host star, written by Bettina Forget, which completed on September 22, 2022.
Trappist-E: A public 30-day voyage to investigate signals emanating from the nearby (39 light years away) Trappist system, written by Gary Thomson, which launched on October 19, 2022.
TOI-1452b: A 30-day voyage to look at the viability of life on this exoplanet, written by Rebecca A. Demarest and will launch on April 3, 2023.
Rogue45, Day 1 Illustration by Bettina Forget
Future voyages will include trips to trips to exoplanets with possible water worlds, ones with eccentric orbits and others that are ancient systems with alien remnants in the center of the galaxy.
EXPERIMENTAL STORYTELLING
Exotopia features an experimental sci-fi storytelling experience by guest writers for each voyage.
(1) Branching narratives
(2) Episodic updates that take place over 30 days
Once the voyage launches, you will be assigned a role or character.. Your story will be told from that point of view. Below, for example, are some characters from the Rogue45 Voyage.
Kai: an astrobiologist, focusing on extremophiles
Tan-e, a documentary filmmaker
The story for that role is a branching narrative where you will have a randomly-chosen path for your character. It’s kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure, except that the story is delivered for you.
Node diagram for Kai’s character, authored in Twine
When the voyage launches, you will receive an episode update Just go to the website and you will see it there. It’s kind of like Wordle, where you get a daily dose. Your character may rise to greatness, go to failure
You can see, for example on Day 8 of the Rogue45 voyage, that there are different endings for Kai.
REAL SCIENTIFIC DATA
Exotopia is a project be SETI artist-in-residence, Scott Kildall, who is working with planetary astronomers at the SETI Institute, who are consulting with Scott on the scientific data around each planet.
They are using their data and knowledge to help with figuring out which Imaginary Voyages we want to develop, but also verifying the things such as the temperature of the planet, what might happen in space and other aspects of the storyline to make them as realistic as possible.
Dr. Franck Marchis, General Scientific Advisor
Dr. Paul Dalba, Speciality Scientific Advisor
The fiction comes in with selecting the crew and the plot lines.
We have just a few rules for the writers:
(1) the science has to be accurate
(2) the voyages are about curiosity and knowledge rather than colonization and battling aliens.
(3) the “universe” of Exotopia has to be cohesive
AI ILLUSTRATIONS
Exotopia now uses AI tools to generate all of its imagery, creating a cohesive look for each voyage.
