Interactive Timeline Looking for Feedback

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CURRENT ALPHA BUILD

First, let me kinda explain what it is I’m working on and why.

Most of the games we’re developing here at Pillar 4 are interconnected into one massive storyline. So massive, in fact, that it would quite literally take me ten lifetimes to actually tell the story through interactive gaming.

So, I’m designing an interactive timeline which will be hosted on our site. This timeline will allow users to view the major events of the story and get a feel for the universe and the characters in it. It will also contain links to any of our games that take place in a particular chapter of the story.

In the end, I would like this timeline to host minor art and animations in the background, playing out major events as the user reads through the history.

This has brought some interesting challenges, as the story quite literally covers the entirety of time and spans across 3 different galaxies (with multiple planets and races in each galaxy) and even a few jaunts to different dimensions. I had to create a measurement of time that was unbiased towards any particular planet, and make a user-friendly interface that would allow users to view only the parts they were interested in reading, while making it a fun tool to use.

Now, we’ve got the Galactic Clock (Maha Kalpa) working, and I’ve got a design put together, but, at the request of my programmer, I’m putting this up for feedback. For the immediate moment, I won’t explain these images, I’d just like to hear what you would think if you opened a webpage and saw this. Would you understand how to use it?

View the full size image.

And, if you’re interested, here is a link to just the clock, working in real time (currently only UTC).

I look forward to hearing what you all think! Thanks!

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Its been a couple months since I began this insane project, and I’m happy to say, its nearly finished. It’s gone through several redesigns, as I searched for the best way to fit 24 billion years of history (for 18 unique alien races) onto a single screen, but I finally worked out a streamlined system.

Now, I’m on to actually writing out the full content of this storyline. While I’ve been researching and writing (and rewriting) this story for more than 10 years, something as massive as this will always have room to grow, and fill in the inevitable gaps.

With that in mind, I would love to hear some thoughts. Not just on the timeline itself, but thoughts for the storyline. Specifically, the future. Writing this, I’m constantly having to think “What will this race/planet/technology be like in 100 years? 5,000 years? 100 million years!?” So let me hear your thoughts on this.

What do you think our world will be like in the future? Any span of time you’d like; 100 years, 1 million years, etc. Save the “we’re all doomed, and humans will be extinct!” stuff. Everything ends, but I have something special planned for our little planet :slight_smile:

Let your imaginations run wild! Robots! Flying cars! Cyber-Implants! 2 kilometer tall buildings!

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Sorry, the timeline is not quite ready to be put on display just yet. Once I get a bit more of the content filled in and some of the effects polished, I’ll put up a demo of it here.

Any and all feedback is welcome. Thanks!

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Come on, people, I can’t be the only one here who thinks about and is fascinated by this stuff. Let’s hear it! How do you envision the world in the distant (and not so distant) future?

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OK I’ll give it a shot

I believe the future 50 to 60 years from now will be very similar to what we have today, the tech is just a lot better. The reason I say this is because nobody’s going to start tearing down buildings just to rebuild ‘smart houses’ and ‘smart buildings’. Everybody’s just going to have to wait to put hand sensors and iris scanners all over the place. However, when all the buildings and houses that are up now need to be re-built we will start to see this ‘future world’ come to life. This will come a lot sooner in urban areas. Simply because worn buildings in the middle of New York don’t look so good. This may take a while though. This could take a few hundred years for all the commercial buildings and houses to be re built. This is really all the building look is based off, when they are built, and they all need to be torn down before they can be built again.

As for technology, that is going to accelerate at a speed unlike anything we have ever seen before. Quantum computing will be a thing, maybe 100 years from now it will be privatized and put into mobile devices, desktops, laptops, etc. Screens will be extremely thin, we will put a little thickness into our phones because we need to, not because we have to. Windows can be screens due to OLED technology, blinds could be drawn on the screen to block out light (this already exists). Laptops sold at Wal-Mart will be like a super computer today. Games will have amazing graphics.

As for getting cyber implants, that won’t become normal for a good while. I think exoskeletons will come first if people want to increase strength. People will get special contacts for zooming in and overlaying useful facts/videos. Extremist will start amputating body parts to get stronger ones first, then as years go by it will equal out to be like getting a tattoo. Some people might amputate a finger to put in a flashdrive or swiss army knife. Others will amputate a whole leg for some strange reason. Some will try to make their whole bodies into robotic parts to become a bionic man/woman, some will fail.

That’s my spin on the future, a lot of weird and awesome stuff.

I didn’t go over the end of the human race though, because I have no idea how that will go down. Either we will kill ourselves or some serious shit happens.

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You mentioned epoch and time frames from 100 yrs to 100 million year’s
Just would add evolution, climate change and that man has been tinkering with such things intentional or not.

don’t believe me on man tinkering with evolution think of dog’s in particular with selective breeding and that’s happened without any knowledge of gene manipulation, but gene manipulation is already a near future reality if not already.

:slight_smile:

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Thanks guys. Yes, evolution is a tricky one. Obviously, there are several stages of evolution already written in here (dinosaurs, prehistoric humans, etc.) but a few hundred million years from now, how will things have changed? :confused:

As for cybernetic implants, we’re already using them to repair the human body. Its really just a question of when we will start using them to improve the human body. What will be the repercussions of that?

I’m very interested in how cities and individual buildings will change. Will we see buildings that are a couple kilometers high? What kind of internal workings will these have as a result? Will they be considered their own neighborhoods?

I also have to work with a lot of government structures. Obviously, empires and super powers rise and fall all the time, and various forms of government have evolved over the years. So will there be new types of government amongst the stars? Will we revert back to older forms of government in that “wild west” in space?

Pick your favorite subject and run with it! :slight_smile:

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I was actually thinking about that today. I think it will probably go down like it did in “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells. In it the main character travels to the year 800,000. When he arrives he is greeted by fragile looking, pale, small, seemingly stupid, yet peaceful people. He believes this to be what humans have evolved into. Then as he goes off to adventure more he discovers wells in the ground, in which worker spider people work. He comes to the conclusion that the above ground people were the wealthy class and the underground people were the working class from his time.

I think this is how evolution will continue on for humans. The ‘cliques’ of society, if you will, will evolve into their own species. For example, the smarter people of today usually hang out so they will evolve into a more intelligent race. The Jocks will evolve into a more aggressive and athletic species. The bodybuilders will evolve into a naturally bigger species. The average Joe will stay more or less the same until they are swept into another almost-species, one they are still able to mate with but isn’t exactly human.

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Excellent reference movie. Its very possible that we’ll have further branching evolution, assuming, of course, humans maintain their same “clique/caste” system. Our evolution has already branched, creating the various races we have today (based primarily on environment). Of course, the popular opinion is that, as humans develop a “global community”, the different races will eventually converge into a single race (most likely having a middle eastern appearance).

Of course, there are a lot of other things to consider. How will space travel affect our social layout? How will our environment change, and how will that affect evolution? And, as Runner said, what effects will our interference in evolution have (through gene manipulation and such)?

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Well, its taken a ton of research and calculating, but I’ve finally got the core skeleton of the events written out. Currently, this is somewhere around 200+ entries. I’ve also added a few new planets, and will be adding several more as this evolves.

While this covers all of the major events of the universe and a good deal of the lesser (though still significant) events, there’s still several million years throughout the timeline that need to be filled in. Any creative storytellers out there? Preferably people who have a solid understanding of how societies work throughout time (rise and fall of governments, wars, technological advances, etc.)

The ultimate goal of this project will be to open it up to the creative freedom of specific developers, but I’d like to have the bulk of the universe fleshed out prior to that.

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This might not be the best because it will only cover about a hundred years and refer to one country,but here it is:

While in my Early Government class I was reading up on Ancient Rome, and was astonished at how close they are to the United States. They are following the exact same path that caused Rome’s downfall. I predict and you can hold this to me, that in less then one hundred years the US will fall. Since it has already started,Texas already is signing petitions to succeed the US. Since this isn’t much help ill think on a more broad prediction of what the world will be like in a few thousand years. But if you go into some details don’t include the US in the history after a hundred or so years, we are already approaching 20 trillion in debt, we will never be free of that.

Ps. I live in the US :0

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Heh, Texas already tried that. Kentucky too. Those petitions are being signed every day (have been for decades), but it never amounts to anything. In this story, however, earth’s only got a couple hundred years left in her anyway. Then asia is the first to secede… from the planet…

So earth’s history is largely figured out already. The future has the largest gaps right now. The universe (and a few hundred thousand humans) continue on for another billion years after earth, and certain events in history have created a very interesting setting for future events (in another galaxy), that is unlike most. The only reason I really need someone that understands history is that I want the events to be realistic. But, it would require a crash course on Uroboros history before you would have any idea on where to begin.

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I have updated my first post with a link to the current build of the timeline. A LOT of content is still missing, and the images (such as the species images) are copyright material that are used for placeholders.

But! Have a look and tell me what you think!

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hi - i’ve just checked out your timeline. nice job overall! i’m looking for a similar kind of thing for a project that i’m working on. the visual look and feel and purpose would be totally different however. it’s for a history timeline related to the gaming industry that would go with a book covering game audio. i’d love to know the basic way you put it together in terms of structure and function, whether you used any custom GUI tools from the Asset store and which ones, etc. i’d love to have a peek at some code if possible. i just haven’t found much info covering this topic within Unity so far.

whatever you can provide would be most appreciated.

best,
scott

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I appreciate this is an old thread, but you may be interested in a series called “The Future Is Wild” - The Future Is Wild - Wikipedia
It’s a documentary that asks scientists to extrapolate what earth will look like 5million, 100million and 200million years in the future. It might give you some ideas of things to consider.