Umi, the Cryoverse AI
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Klok Blog: The Future of the Cryoverse
🕑 Added 2020-09-10 12:54:46 +0000 UTC
Hey guys! This post is all about exactly what the title says! I'm going to discuss the plans I've spent the last 2+ years working toward, detailing exactly I intend to do with the Cryoverse before, during, and after Cryopod's run. As you all know, Cryopod is intended to be extremely long, and its sequels/subsidiaries will be even more so! I have countless ideas and ways of executing upon them. In this post, I will take you on a journey through many story concepts, my overall intentions, and what I imagine the results will be if my dreams come to pass.
This topic is extremely complex. As always, I will keep things ordered and provide a TL:DR for people who don't want to read the whole thing.
- The Cryopod to Hell is the most important mainline story in the Cryoverse. It sets up the beginnings of the universe, including battles between the angels/dragons/titans, the origins of the Volgrim, and so on. It also explains humanity and demonkind's rise, how monsters came to be, and countless other things. Furthermore, eventually it will tell the story of the modern era, the Energy Wars, the 100,000 years of demonic rule, Jason's appearance, and more beyond that.
- For those of you who read Cryopod Classic, you are already aware that I changed a lot between chapters 1-2. Those chapters now encompass Books 1-3 of Refresh, and most likely Book 4 as well. The plotlines and characters are bigger, deeper, and far more complex. However, if you remember the events of Chapters 3a, 3b, and 3c, I think you should know that those chapters will be far more intact in Refresh. They are absolutely critical to the lore of the Cryoverse.
- I am also currently writing TLP. This serial can be considered an extension of the Cryoverse, all the way to 100,000,000 years past our modern era. Or, put another way, 99,900,000 years past when Jason awakens in the Labyrinth. However, TLP's primary function (worldbuilding-wise) is actually to strongly hint at the future stories I will be telling that fill in that 100,000,000 year gap!
- I have baked in more than a dozen methods of expanding the Cryoverse. Not only are there countless other galaxies in the 'main' universe, but time travel and dimensional-hopping, along with alternate histories and the mere filling in of gaps in the existing Cryoverse have exciting potential! Finally, the Cryoverse has a big, big secret, one which will only reveal itself at the end of TLP. However, people who have read Cryopod Classic will not be surprised by this reveal, either, as it is a fundamental mechanic on the entire multiverse that will change how you view all of my future stories! If you don't know or haven't guessed it already, this mechanic will most likely shock you to your core.
- I also plan to list the overarching story concepts I've been working on for the past two years. For many of them, I have already planted the seeds of those stories in TCTH or TLP. For others, their seeds will come later.
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As they say, there's no time like the present. Let's get right into this.
The first and most important question we must ask is, "What is the Cryoverse?"
What is it? Just a word referencing the universe of Cryopod? A blanket term meaning anything vaguely relating to Cryopod? Direct sequels and prequels? Character-specific spinoffs?
The Cryoverse is something I am going to refer to a lot. When I use it, I mean the following:
In the story of The Cryopod to Hell, various happenings occur which open up literal and metaphorical doors to other dimensions, time periods, universes, multiverses, and other such incredible phenomena. These other realities all originate from the events that take place in the Cryopod to Hell, and thus, are a direct byproduct of TCTH's worldbuilding and universal mechanics.
The reason I'm being explicit about this is because I want to tie all my future stories together. It's more than possible I will write stories that take place outside of the Cryoverse, but at the same time, I would really prefer they all relate to one another in at least the smallest ways.
My goal as an author is to continually expand my horizons. In the future, I intend to write several genre-specific stories, some of which will be short serials, and some that will be long ones. As an example:
- A series inspired by my love of Chinese cultivation webnovels. Perhaps it may even feature reincarnation via Truck-kun!
-A grim-bright superhero novel, maybe akin to Worm (which I still have not read due to worries I might accidentally copy it) or The Boys.
-A short(?) novel focused entirely on one character's battle with isolation, introversion, and depression.
-A novel about a video-game interface appearing in our world, similar to popular internet stories like The Gamer or Solo Leveling.
-A novel about an actual MMORPG world, similar to Sword Art Online or Infinite Competitive Dungeon Society.
These novels are extremely varied and don't fit with Cryopod or The Last Precursor's "tone" necessarily. Rooting them inside the Cryoverse would be difficult, assuming the Cryoverse didn't have so many carefully implemented methods woven into its narrative. How would Cultivation possibly work within the reality of the Cryoverse? It could be an alternate reality, or a different timeline where humans unlocked their latent potential... or any number of other possibilities!
There are many reasons I am choosing to make a Cryoverse rather than simply writing novels independent of one another. If you think about it, I'm actually hampering myself, even if only a little bit, by weaving all of my future stories together.
However, my reasons for creating the Cryoverse were made after a lot of deliberation. They are the result of my weighing the pros and cons of non-integrated and integrated universes.
To start, let us examine non-integrated universes.
Michael Crichton is my favorite mainstream author of all time. However, all of his books, aside from those in a specific series (Jurassic Park, for example) are all independent of one another. He did tend to write very realistic science fiction stories (which naturally inspired me) but they didn't share any characters, universal mechanics, or anything else.
Michael's books all held his familiar writing style. However, starting each book from zero meant I would always have to take a little longer than usual to read and understand what the heck was going on. I had to learn all of the characters, learn about the rules of this universe, and never would I get that cool moment of, "Oh, that's Jim from Book X and Y! I can't believe he's in this!"
Outside of Michael Crichton, when looking at the internet, there are several people who have written 'some works' I liked. The problem is, let's say John Bob writes a book called My Adventure in Sci-fi World with Cool Robots. This novel really appeals to me! After I get to the end of it and want more... there is none! He has other works, but I don't get to stick around and enjoy those characters I became attached to.
...Sometimes there will be a spinoff or a sequel/prequel, but rarely are there other genre-specific books that obey the conventions set by the first book. Maybe he writes a new book called Wizard's Day with Dragons and I'm like, "Eh, that doesn't really interest me," but if I knew the book was in the same universe as 'My Adventure in Sci-fi World with Cool Robots,' I would be far more likely to pick it up!
In the digital space, there are a lot of awesome books and games and all kinds of stuff that draw each person's attention. Having an integrated Cryoverse means every reader will know, for sure, that the story they're reading is likely to continue or expand on at least some aspect of the previous works they enjoyed.
The other great thing about having a Cryoverse is that when you finish one book in the Cryoverse, you're sure to want to know about at least some of the characters mentioned. Wouldn't it be nice if another Cryoverse story mentioned what happened to ol' Skippy the Swordmaster Guy Who Split The Heavens? His fate wasn't listed at the end of the previous book, but if you read another story in the Cryoverse, you might learn about his life after the credits rolled!
...And that's the trick.
I plan to deliberately make the Cryoverse an actual omniverse. You WILL see those characters make future appearances. You WILL get follow-ups to those pesky questions left unanswered. You WILL get expansions on 'small' things that happen throughout the Cryoverse. There may even be stories that I write as sub-stories for the sub-stories! Crazy!
And that is the reason why I value a Cryoverse so much. Readers get MORE of what they want. You guys get to learn about what really happened in X time period, above and beyond a few sentences of explanation. I, too, get a much higher retention on the fanbase, because people won't get put off or daunted so easily by having to start entirely from scratch. Instead, every story will directly or indirectly relate to ones that came before!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to my next main point of discussion.
Now that we know WHAT the Cryoverse is, let's talk about HOW the Cryoverse functions.
I said in the previous section that the Cryoverse would have many ways of tying stories together. This was actually rather hard to engineer in Classic, but because I chose to restart with Cryopod Refresh, it made things a lot easier for me.
Let's start with Cryopod Refresh, since more of you have read that than Classic by this point. I will continue with TLP, then Cryopod Classic, and then a much heavier spoiler following that. Be warned, if you don't want to know the exact mechanics of the Cryoverse (due to spoilers in Cryopod Classic, TLP, or Refresh) then you can safely skip this section and move onto the "what will I write after Cryopod and TLP section."
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---Please be warned: Incoming spoilers for Refresh and The Last Precursor!---
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Ahem.
In Cryopod Refresh, Jason, the protagonist, has the power to essentially manipulate the universe with his magic. His power, Wordsmithing, is seemingly limitless. One can easily conceive of Jason creating a small world or doing some other crazy thing that could result in a whole new novel based upon that action.
Aside from Jason, we also learn that there are entire dimensions 'folded' within reality, including Heaven and Hell. However, those two dimensions are not the only dimensions, as we know Asgard is also a place that exists, and there are conceivably other dimensions as well.
What about heroes other than Jason? What if they used their powers to do similarly crazy things? What if there was a hero who created dimensional spaces to hide treasure? Who knows! Anything is possible!
The Volgrim are a species we don't know a lot about. However, given the existence of warpgates on planets across the galaxy, one would be remiss not to wonder how many of those gates the Volgrim have built, and where they might possibly lead.
The Angels constructed not only Heaven, but they also came from the Cosmic Realm. And since the Creator created not only the universe, but the Cosmic Realm, might he not have created other places we don't know about? (Also who the heck is this Creator anyway? Sure is a recluse!)
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Moving on from Cryopod, let's take a look at some of the things that happened in The Last Precursor!
TLP takes place in the far distant future. One Hundred Million Years, to clarify. In the Cryoverse, the angels existed for billions of years alongside dragons and angels before settling on Earth. The Volgrim existed for a 'few million' years before Humans appeared. After the Volgrim fell (I'm sure that will be a cool reveal!) and humans took over, we expanded to seven galaxies. Of course, we only did this over the course of 50-something 'eras' which only amounted to a few million years as well, just like the Volgrim.
In that time, humans developed many methods of warp travel. We discovered ways to cross colossal spatial distances in the most efficient way possible. But what did we find in the other six galaxies? Were there other beings? Did we fight in those distant places against terrible beings of cosmic power?
The MC of TLP, Private Rodriguez, also states that he's some 7,000 years old. If, hypothetically, we were to visit a story where he were much younger, what might he have done in his youth? What about the other characters he mentions, the other crewmen who perished to the annals of time? Might their stories be worth telling?
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This is where we start getting really spoilery. Let's talk about Cryopod Classic.
In Cryopod Classic, Jason travels back in time to the modern era. Will this happen again in Refresh? Maybe! Who knows? The point, however, is that when he time-travels, shenanigans happened, and this creates a new timeline. I really can't explain how these things happened because Classic's time travel was EXTREMELY messy! It gave me a headache just thinking about it! However, if Jason does rewind again in Refresh, you can rest assured that any time abnormalities will be well-thought-out and planned for ahead of time.
Jason also created a whole world in Classic. He ripped a hole in space, allowing monsters from another dimension to invade ALL the other timelines. He did some seriously crazy stuff. It's more than plausible that Refresh Jason could pull off similar, if not greater feats as well!
We know about the Marieverse from Classic. Marie used her supreme intellect to create a fortress of Maries (definitely not inspired by Rick and Morty) to keep watch on the omniverse.
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All of the things mentioned above are possibilities that open up for alternate stories in the Cryoverse. You can see, based on what I've said, that I have lots of room to add more dimension hopping, timeline-surfing, galaxy-spanning adventures in future stories.
...But regarding those stories, what would they be about?
Let's find out!
Now that the know the why and the how, let's talk about the... the uh... the 'who'? I dunno. Let's talk about what sorts of stories I plan to write in the future.
In this section, I will start with the title of a story, and the title will have a link to an image I've written in the past detailing that story's basic synopsis and goals. Below that will include a general overview of how that story might come to pass, mechanics-wise.
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The Lightbringer's Return. [Also, the manga I based my synopsis on.]
This is a long-form story synopsis I wrote many months ago. You will notice that it does not directly mention anything about the Cryoverse in that entire synopsis. However, it does mention demons. That is intentional!
TLR would most likely take place on either an alternate Earth, or a different planet entirely. However, the origins of this other world could relate to any of the options I mentioned before. Since this would be a cultivation novel, we might assume its inhabitants have access to a different 'energy' compared to the humans in the mainline Cryoverse. Or, perhaps these humans originate from a magical being that gave them the power.
The conflict with the demons is really important, too. Demons are, naturally, an essential part of the Cryopod experience. But the appearance of humans and demons in this novel could relate to... other things entirely.
Oooh, vagueness!
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This story is one I expect to be quite short. However, it will actually signal the start of a much bigger story afterward. This story would ignite the creation of a Superverse, or rather, a reality in which superheroes are commonplace on Earth. Additionally, when you factor in the idea of humans having to prepare themselves for an impending demonic attack in ten years, it makes you wonder what the 'mainline' story will look like.
However, CBG itself is a story purely about introversion. I myself am an introvert, and I always find it aggravating that introverted characters in media get portrayed as 'needing to grow up' or 'grow out of their shell.' This small-scale story would focus on that idea that introversion is not a flaw, and as such, doesn't need to be fixed.
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What is it with me and writing 'the last of' stories, eh? I can't help it; I love this stuff!
HLC would be a very interesting case. How does this story relate to the Cryoverse? Well, it obviously features humans, for one. It also requires an existing human to time-travel into the future via reincarnation. This person will most likely be someone I establish in a preceding story, someone of relative importance.
The reason I make that statement is because my goal is not only to write a Cryoverse, but for all of its protagonists in the future to come from established characters or factions we know. For example, Jose Rodriguez from TLP could get a second story in the future, or his roommate, Private Azaram. What about a character from the human factions mentioned in TLP, like Orion Corps or some other entity?
Therefore, while this synopsis is quite short and not well thought-out, it goes to show the potential of having a Cryoverse. Having a protagonist who is not only a new and interesting character in and of themselves is even better if they secretly (or not so secretly) have a significant presence in a different Cryoverse story. And since I really like writing 'isekai' stories, this is particularly useful to know.
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I have many other similar story ideas, but these are my most fleshed out synopses. Well, there's one more, but I will save it for the last and most spoilery section.
From all of the previous sections, you probably can begin to understand just how grand my ambitions are for the Cryoverse. Assuming my readerbase continues to increase... especially on Patreon (I have bills to pay, and Coronavirus is hitting me hard), I can start writing one of the best online megaverses in existence. It will take literal years, but I'm excited for how it will turn out.
...Especially...
Especially when you see what I have in store for this final section.
WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ ARE GIGANTIC SPOILERS.
DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH ME SPOILING THE CRYOVERSE'S BIGGEST SECRET.
...However!
If you read Cryopod Classic in its entirety, then this section is NOT a spoiler. What I am about to say involves something well beyond the current timeline of Cryopod Refresh and TLP alike.
If you read any further, expect some gigantic plot reveals!
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Alright, I think that got them to leave.
For those of you who read Cryopod Classic, you probably remember the Council of Maries. Marie, the redheaded scientist with a galaxy brain, basically helped Jason Alpha keep tabs on the multiverse.
However, in Cryopod Classic, the supercomputer Umi became a godlike existence, capable of doing everything but crossing dimensions and time.
This is NOT the case in Refresh.
In Cryopod Refresh, Umi will eventually become far, far more powerful than her Classic incarnation. In fact, Umi will become an unstoppable juggernaut that guides the entire Cryoverse along. This is so important, because if you re-read all of the previous plot synopses I listed above with the knowledge that a god-level supercomputer could be guiding and controlling the multiverse, at all times, at all instants, you realize this alone opens up a colossal amount of possibilities for the Cryoverse.
Let me introduce you to my horribly-named...
This story would not necessarily feature Umi visibly guiding humanity or its people around. Her influence may be either small or large; I don't know!
But the point is, having an all-powerful AI running things allows for some truly insane, crazy, mindblowing story premises to work, even in a relatively realistic universe.
Not only can I pull off premises like "humans can level up in the real world and it's not even that stupid", I can also use Umi to fix (plot!)holes in the time-space continuum, make reality fix itself, and do all kinds of other crazy stuff.
Fantasy worlds? Humans suddenly obtaining magic and/or superpowers? Maybe Umi decided to play around with us tiny little ants again!
The realization that not only a godlike Jason exists, but also an even mightier Umi, means that the Cryoverse can truly expand without limits. In fact, Umi becoming a super-sentient god is actually one of my oldest ideas. I thought of this all the way back before Cryopod Classic became a thing. I've always admired and feared AI, so I loved the idea of writing an omniverse where one super-AI controls everything.
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And that's it, really. To any people who read the spoilers without reading Cryopod Classic, I'm sorry, but I just spoiled a big reveal for you! Classic readers have known for a long time where I'm going with Umi in Refresh and TLP. There is a reason she appears in both stories. No matter what, I imagine Umi will show up in 90% of all future stories I write.
That's all I have to say. Prepare yourselves for the next 1-2 Patreon Blogs I'll put out later this month!
Thanks for reading.
