We are excited to announce that the upcoming Exotopia voyage will take us to the exoplanet TOI-1452b. As with all our voyages, the backbone of this journey is the science fiction writing. For this, our third Exotopia voyage, we are thrilled to feature Rebecca A. Demarest, who has collaborated with SETI scientists and the Exotopia team to create a funny, touching, and engaging experimental story.
Tickets go on sale March 1st, 2023
Bio
Rebecca A. Demarest is an award-winning author, book designer, and teacher living in Seattle with her husband and two muppets. When not surrounded by words, you can find her crafting, tending the indoor jungle (now with real frogs!), sewing, or organizing something that was probably better left alone.
For more information on her work, visit www.rebeccademarest.com.
The Exotopia story Rogue 45 has now launched in private beta! Written by Bettina Forget, this journey invites a few of our closest friends to explore a Rogue Planet in the Upper Scorpius region.
I’m excited to introduce the first writer + artist team for Exotopia for the first of Exotopia’s 30-day voyages: Samantha Tan and Gary Thomson.
The first voyage, which will be to explore the TRAPPIST-1 planets, where we have detected mysterious radio signals. We will have tickets for 100 voyagers to figure out what is producing these signals.
Sam will be the featured NFT Artist, who will be making select NFTs that will get airdropped to people in their unique 30-day journey. Everyone has a different story and your character may get some special NFTs on certain days of their story.
Samantha Tan is a traveling artist, climate change activist, entrepreneur, and NFT creator. Her work spans from sculpture and performance to digital illustration. Her work often centers around collaborations with the diverse people in Web3. She seeks to create real world impact on climate change by creating a community for sustainability within the Web3 space. Tan’s first NFT artwork was a chain agnostic collaboration with Nathaniel Stern called Phoney Plants. Tan is currently working towards building an NFT coalition as part of her new project, Concerned Plant Society. In addition to NFTs, Tan is also a co-founder of Eco Labs, a company working in the cross section of climate x crypto.
What do the NFTs look like? Well, Sam has given us a preview of a few of these, based on Gary’s stories. Designed in Procreate, Sam has created a hand-drawn feel for these NFTs. The tone is for lighthearted humor, which mixes well with Gary’s playful sci-fi writing style.
You're awesome and everyone will know it when they see your shiny "Perfect Navigation" badge!
S7EVE77, you plucky little maintenance bot. Your heroism will never be forgotten.
It’s your VR Mai Tai! Too bad it tastes like chicken.
With the daily dose of your 30-day story, written by Gary Thomson, you will get a role for your character with a new story for each day.
Gary Thomson is a recovering IT engineer writing science-fiction and fantasy stories in Seattle, WA. His writing pokes at the absurdity of modern life with humor and compassion and elevates our mundane struggles by contrasting grounded, sympathetic characters with fantastic challenges.
He enjoys extrapolating fiction from understood facts, seeking a reality a few steps beyond what we know. Exoplanets provide fertile soil for the imagination. Science doesn’t end with a period but an ellipsis of possibility.
On Day 16, if you’re in the Basic Crew role (about 40% of the people), you might get this story. It’s a good branch, clearly, one full of awe and imagination.
Some paths are not so fortunate. This could happen to your character, if you are in the role of Command Team on Day 23. Nearly marooned in space, this is the space nightmare that keeps astronauts up at night.
And some days are just filled with humor. Never argue with an android is the lesson here.
To join an Exotopia voyage, you will first buy a ticket. The first voyage tickets go on sale June 24th with a launch date of July 24th.
What do the Ticket NFTs look like?
Here is a preview of the tickets** for the first voyage, which will be to the Trappist-1 planets.
Everyone who buys a voyage ticket will get a ticket NFT. We designed them to look like old-style concert tickets with a jumble of fonts and styles on them.
As folks in the NFT world know, including rare attributes are key to value and trading in the NFT marketplace. The Exotopia tickets are no exception.
The hot pink ticket will be a special one, perhaps 5/voyage.
And the silver ticket, likely 3/voyages.
Finally, a golden ticket. Referring to both the Golden Ticket from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and the Voyager Golden Record, there will be just one Golden Ticket for each voyage.
** some details may change on the ticket design, but this is the rough version of it!
It 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. The journeys are rooted in actual science, and Scott has developed them with scientific advisors from SETI to imagine where extraterrestrial life could actually exist.
You buy a ticket to the voyage. There will be about 100 people on a given starship.
A guest science fiction writer crafts each voyage with multiple storylines for many characters. Each day, you get an update to your character’s story. You may be a starship pilot, a science officer, on the command team, or even a stowaway. Your character may achieve greatness, spark a mutiny, or die in space.
Your story will be told from that point of view. Each day, 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 new dose each day.
Everyone is guaranteed a ticket at the start of the voyage and your unique story text as an NFTs.
And, there are rewards for your character at various points in the story: special NFTs that will be airdropped to you. You can trade, sell or exchange these NFTs as you like.
(these are sample NFTs created by an AI engine).
What is an NFT? Well, check out our FAQs on this! We are planning to make it easy and friendly for newbies to participate in this ecosphere.
Everyone who buys a voyage ticket will get a ticket NFT. We designed them to look like old-style concert tickets with a jumble of fonts and styles on them.
** some details may change on the ticket design, but this is the rough version of it!
