NOTICE: This website is a Work-In-Progress (W.I.P.) All content will change significantly as Project Universe develops. Feedback is welcome!
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Project Universe is an open-source constantly evolving community developed plan intuitively preparing Humanity for our imminent united interplanetary future. We’re accomplishing this by directly and indirectly collaborating with everyone contributing to the betterment of our civilization. All resources available to our species are included minimizing the amount of work our team needs to do. Everyone, including you, is invited to help us help Humanity, no prior experience is required, only the desire to live your best life.
As of February 2021 we’re on stage 2 of The Plan, essentially we’re creating a free space-ready school disguised as a video game. The Game provides the resilient infrastructure required by The School and our primary method of self-funding called The Mall.
The School provides free reliable access to the best education possible anywhere on and off Earth in a variety of ways. Initially this is accomplished by creating a single access point in collaboration with all existing educational institutions, schools, websites, apps, freelance mentors, content creators, etc. Later this includes teaching real-world skills via artificial intelligence, procedural gameplay mechanics, augmented and virtual reality, whether it be math, science, welding, carpentry, leadership, social skills, etc.
The Mall is simple, users purchase products and services from real businesses via virtual touch-screen kiosks generating passive commission based income. The kiosks link to a business’ website via affiliate links they provide or through third-party affiliate websites such as CJ.com, Impact.com and ShareASale.com. Every business is freely added to the mall maximizing total potential income.
The Game is essentially a fancy user interface providing easy access to all forms of entertainment, facilitating social interaction, combating cabin fever, etc. Currently data transmission speeds are limited by the speed of light due to physics, so playing with friends on the Moon or Mars is difficult due to signal latency.
Your character is crew aboard Humanity’s first fleet of city spacecraft traveling between solar systems colonizing our galaxy. Without FTL technology it takes years to travel between stars, these cityships contain everything we need to survive interstellar travel. Your job is to live your best life, help the fleet how you want, learn what you want, do what you want and most importantly, have fun.
This setting helps people acclimate to life in space while providing feedback ensuring the real-life spaceships we build in the future maintain maximum morale. There’s many ways of improving morale, the simplest is the environment you’re in, the game gives us a way to test designs without wasting resources until they’re ready for real world use.
Stage 3 begins when we have adequate resources to build self-sufficient free-to-live-in housing complexes similar to the city spacecraft which are refined further on Earth prior to use in space. Each high-tech complex includes everything a community needs to survive in complete isolation such as aquaponics, renewable power generation, 3D printing, recycling, water treatment, medical care, manufacturing, repair facilities, etc.
Each housing complex expands the support network, with each using their excess resources to build more complexes. In the event of an accident or natural disaster, help can be far away, in space it can be months or years. The school, mall, game and housing complexes all reduce the severity of the event ensuring more people survive.
The Purpose of these interconnected independently-functional systems is to intuitively permanently end suffering everywhere gradually. Streamlining our way of life reduces our impact on nature, conserves resources and helps everyone live their best life. Free open collaboration is Humanity’s most powerful tool capable of preparing us for our future, wherever that may be.
Progress in one is progress in all, a positive feedback loop: As the community grows, more volunteers join, crowdfunding increases, investor appeal increases, self-funding increases, more funding allows me to hire more volunteers, progress accelerates, more businesses become affiliates or partners, etc.
After the first $30,000/month in revenue I begin hiring non-developers, such as livestreamers to essentially do what they do now while helping grow our community. Until the automated systems are built each creator acts as a community representative ensuring all of your needs are met.
Every employee, including me, receives $2,000/month for 10ish hours worth of work per week. With 1,000s of employees creating content, everyone is able to work less. Crohn’s disease requires I prioritize my physical and mental health, I require each of you do the same. When you’re able to contribute, do so, but if you’re sick, just had a baby, don’t feel well or whatever, take care of you and yours first.
This was a brief introduction of what Project Universe is, subsequent videos focus on individual aspects in more detail. Our website Shaostoul.com is the primary hub of information, the Plan page is mostly focused on the game’s development, the Contact page has links to all our official accounts, such as social media, GitHub, Trello and Discord. On Discord you can meet the team, follow development in real-time, submit an application and hang out.
Project Universe is more than just a game, it’s a mixed reality user interface streamlining our way of life ensuring you spend more of your time living while simultaneously preparing you for our civilization’s interplanetary future. We start this process by addressing a simple, yet dangerous side-effect of isolation, cabin fever.
On Earth cabin fever sucks, but in space its effects are life-threatening as going for a walk or hanging out with your neighbor isn’t always an option. There’s plenty of fictional examples of just how dangerous it can be, so our goal is to combat it at every opportunity.
This starts with creating an immersive virtual environment replicating what it’ll actually be like when we’re living off-Earth. It’s a testing ground for refining designs ensuring the environment we live in maintains maximum morale, this includes plants, furniture, floors, walls, ceilings, windows, lighting, paintings, murals, aesthetics, etc. Virtual Reality is the best form of obtaining maximum immersion, but not everyone likes or has access to VR, so it’s not required.
Social interaction is crucial to developing and maintaining a healthy mental state as humans are naturally social creatures, we accomplish this by connecting people virtually. Interplanetary latency issues will arise, but for now it’s a way of ensuring everyone gets the education and social interaction they need while safe at home anywhere on Earth.
Seeing as everyone has different tastes we’re freely partnering with the creators and owners of other intellectual properties. Experiencing one universe is great, but variety is the spice of life and better prepares us for our future. We encourage players to play games by other developers or watch movies unlocking equipment that looks like theirs in our game.
Project Universe is playable offline, local co-op, non-official servers and official ones. All of the procedural gameplay is always accessible regardless of how you’re playing. Essentially this is all the procedural content we’re working on today before releasing the MMO’s dynamic player driven story when the game is officially released a few years from now.
The game is set in our future following Humanity’s first fleet of interstellar city spacecraft on their mission to explore and colonize our galaxy. Players are crew aboard the fleet living out their lives growing food, mining asteroids, crafting equipment, exploring alien vessels for salvage and much more.
The players are responsible for providing the resources the fleet needs to build new colonization spacecraft that are left behind when the fleet sets off for the next planet. How long the fleet stays at a given location depends on how long it takes to gather the required resources. We use moving the fleet to a new location as a way of announcing new gameplay mechanics indicated by the change of scenery, such as introducing power armor gameplay, pilotable vehicles, etc.
During development we’re creating basic indefinitely repeatable gameplay first, it’s similar to bounties and rifts in Diablo 3, daily quests in MMOs, general gameplay similar to Stardew Valley, etc. Upon the game’s release the true story begins, we’ll cover that in another video.
Every player starts with their own home, dedicated farm and storage areas on their preferred cityship. From here you can earn a larger home, farm or storage area by contributing to the fleet in whichever way you prefer. Each cityship is a server, how big the server is depends on what the hardware can support. While you live on one ship you’re able to see the others flying in formation outside your ship’s windows. More servers means a bigger fleet.
Farming is for growing plants as a food source or renewable resources such as alcohol for flamethrowers, oil for hydraulics, 3D printing resins, etc. Depending on supply and demand, excess resources can be given to the fleet increasing your reputation unlocking better equipment and facilities. As you play more options become available, giving you new and unique things to grow, that may be genetically modified or even alien in origin.
Crafting starts simple, craft decorations, home furnishings, farming and combat equipment using resources grown from your farm, mined from asteroids, what you collect during missions or purchased from the fleet market. Craft automation equipment for your farm or mining operation, so while you’re out doing other stuff, you’re always generating resources. Craft generic or specialized combat equipment increasing your odds of survival or give it to the fleet increasing your reputation while keeping public armories stocked for quick mission deployments.
Mine raw non-renewable materials from asteroids discovered in the void between stars or while the fleet is exploring a new solar system looking for places to establish colonies. Asteroids come in many shapes and sizes with a plethora of ordinary and potentially extraordinary materials hidden within.
Combat and exploration offers great rewards at the risk of losing your carried equipment in the event you die during a solo expedition or your entire team wipes. You always have access to the public armory, but personalized equipment needs to be recrafted. What’s available in the armory is up to the players, do you craft generic weapons you don’t care about losing or powerful weapons collectively increasing your odds of survival in a random group.
Primarily gameplay is co-op PvE as we’re teaching people we don’t want humans fighting as it’s detrimental to our survival, especially when we’re so far from home. PvP gameplay gives players a way of proving how skilled they are at a certain style of gameplay in tournaments, useful for determining team builds, for guilds, and special server wide events.
Each form of gameplay intuitively teaches people how to be a productive member of society while unlocking more gameplay features at the same time.
For example, welding is a very useful skill with simple and advanced uses. A simple example is welding a door shut blocking hostiles, it’s relatively easy to do with minimal experience. An advanced example is welding the support structure of a large robot, if done poorly it can reduce its mobility or even render it completely immobile.
With advancing artificial intelligence and extended reality technology what’s able to be taught through the game continually improves. We want to make sure in the event of some horrible catastrophe leaving you completely alone you have the best chance at survival. In the event you’re stuck on Mars by yourself with the only help available coming from Earth it can be several months away.
This is an overly-simplified explanation of what the game truly is, if you’re confused, have a suggestion, want to contribute to the project, or just be a part of the community, be sure to join our Discord. There’s always a link available on the contact page of our website: Shaostoul.com
Humanity aims to colonize Mars by 2026, as of today our education system isn’t designed for life off-Earth, it’s imperative we address this issue as soon as possible. Fortunately it’s easier than it sounds, especially with advancements in artificial intelligence and extended reality technology. Another benefit of creating a school designed for use in space is we’re simultaneously creating a school deployable anywhere on Earth.
We start the design process focused on the worst case learning situation, isolation. It won’t always be the case, but it’s the best place to start due to its simplicity.
Step one is creating the account system recording your progress in any given subject whether it’s taught by Project Universe’s in-game teaching methods or partnered educational institutions, including non-traditional ones such as Brilliant, CuriosityStream and National Geographic. The purpose of recording your progress is streamlining the education-to-job process, a personal favorite benefit is never having to fill out an application or resume ever again.
Step two is providing access to all non-Project Universe educational material as soon as possible. This step has two stages, the first is essentially uncurated access during initial development, the second is community curated curriculums facilitating the best learning experience. In-game users access this content via displays located throughout the play area, on wall mounted displays, wrist mounted displays similar to pip-boys, cell phones, and most vehicles; This way, no matter what you’re doing, you can always be learning something new! This is the fastest way we can start combating cabin fever for people stuck at home during a quarantine with minimal gameplay development required.
Step three is creating various in-game methods of teaching different things, for example: Opening a locked door requires solving a series of math problems. Automating your farm requires assembling the robot at a crafting bench as if you were doing so in real-life. Creating personalized equipment requires assembling it as you want it. This hands-on teaching method is consistently the most effective way of teaching anyone anything without requiring the materials in real-life.
With these three steps people are able to learn most everything necessary to become a functional member of society while isolated. Our first goal is to provide the typical preschool to 18 year old level education followed by college courses, we can expect the most complex ones, such as becoming a doctor, to be among the last to be completed.
Step four is creating the classroom style teaching environment so we can send the minimum required hardware for teaching in poverty stricken locations. Essentially we want to create a bare minimum teaching package we can send anywhere, for example a solar panel, battery pack, Starlink satellite dish, and a bunch of tablets. What it is will likely change as we get closer to this step.
The primary goal is creating a comprehensive solution capable of teaching anyone anything anywhere at their pace. AI makes teaching nearly anything in isolation possible, but we also allow human teachers for those uncomfortable with an AI teacher or the AI is incapable of teaching a particular subject. Augmented and virtual reality further expands what’s able to be taught, without requiring the physical materials to teach a particular subject.
When it comes to education, we’re not competing with other educators, we’re cooperating, as we’re able to create a better education system together. Many of the issues Humanity faces are solved with proper education, so we want to make sure it’s the best it can possibly be.
To learn more about Project Universe head over to Shaostoul.com
To truly understand why Project Universe exists we must start at the beginning, I’ll keep it short as I can…
My name is Michael Boisson, I was born on 29 January 1988 in Tampa, Florida via my mother Destiny and father David.
My love for video games began in 1992 when I first played the Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt combo cartridge on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
Around this time my parents divorced due to David abusing us. My older brother Matthew and I went with my Mom, she got with my step-father Kevin, we moved to Washington state, then my younger brother Paul was born in 1993. Kevin is my true Dad, David is nothing more than a sperm donor.
My love for game development and modifying them began in 1994 when I began playing and modding games on my Dad’s Amiga 4000 with games such as Ascendency, Elite: Frontier 2, Battletech: Crescent Hawk’s Inception and Master of Magic.
When I wasn’t playing outside with my brothers and friends, I was more than likely playing video games. I played everything we could get our hands on, as a result we experienced the evolution of video games firsthand. My love for supporting and teaching others began due to being a middle child. I was always player 2 when gaming with Matt, then when Paul started gaming I mentored him, which was incredibly fun!
My love for learning about Humanity took off in 2006 when I began teaching people how to modify games for fun, starting with Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. Since then I’ve played, modded and taught modding for many games. As the internet evolved this led to interacting with people across the globe which taught me what life was like in their countries.
In 2014 I began modding the game Space Engineers by Keen Software House. At first modding was done directly in the game’s folders, then a few months later modding was handled through Steam Workshop, making it significantly easier. This led to the modding community growing rapidly, at which point I started teaching nearly all day every day for fun, as countless people were asking for help. This is when my community began to grow, it started on Skype, then we switched to Discord when it released mid-2015.
Everything was going well until May 2016 when my biological father came to Washington for 2 weeks as his girlfriend was attending a nurse’s convention in Seattle. He asked Matt and I to hang out, which I reluctantly agreed to. I hadn’t seen him for 20-ish years, I dislike him as he’s a manipulative narcissistic asshole. I figured this may be my last opportunity to see him, so I went with it.
We mostly drove around talking and checking out cool places, then one day while driving around Seattle I had severe stomach pain. When I went to the bathroom to poop, there was a ton of blood which terrified me. This marked the beginning of Crohn’s disease rendering me bedridden and constant internal bleeding.
I tried to see the doctor as soon as possible, but I had to wait until October to have a colonoscopy. Late July my cousin David in Florida lost partial vision in one eye due to a brain tumor. My Mom & I flew down in the beginning of August to help his mom Stephanie, my Mom’s middle sister, take care of him. I figured I had to wait till October anyways, so the least I could do is help my Mom until then. His brain surgery went relatively well.
Mid-October I flew back up to Washington, had the colonoscopy late-October, got the results back in November telling me I have Ulcerative Colitis/Crohn’s Disease. Essentially my immune system attacks anywhere along my Gastrointestinal Tract causing severe internal bleeding and pain. After several doctors gave me conflicting information on how to treat it, I was feeling hopeless and extremely depressed.
January 2017 I applied for disability, after fighting for it most of the year, it ended with the judge denying me disability despite being on death’s doorstep. Part of their closing statement was, “Without taking into consideration your sit/stand issues you can work all these jobs.” I was told I couldn’t reapply until my symptoms worsened.
My GI doctor tried to get me the medication I needed, but Medicaid was refusing to pay for the proper dose, so we tried cheaper alternatives. I started sulfasalazine early 2017, which seemed to be helping, but it was hard to tell, as I was on a lot of medications.
Apparently I’m ever so slightly allergic to it, I only found out when I had to have life-saving surgery in December 2017 due to an abcess which was infected with e-coli and salmonella, one of which got into my blood. That day at the ER was the scariest moment of my life as my body gradually became completely numb due to sepsis while I waited for the doctors to come in the next morning to perform the surgery.
When I woke from surgery I was miserable, in pain, nauseous, depressed, scared, etc. Initially I believed my life was over, I couldn’t finish college and had no idea how I’d survive without help. I spent the week in the recovery room creating a plan facilitating my ability to live a life I could be proud of. Then on 24 December 2017 on Christmas Eve I returned home and began working on Project Universe. After this I began the healing process as we finally got the medication and proper dosages I need. I’m still bedridden, don’t hurt nearly as much, and no longer bleed internally.
Fortunately my hobby provided a community, knowledge and resources, so I wasn’t starting from scratch. Additionally I had been designing my dream sci-fi game since 2007, which provided a solid foundation to build off of. Project Universe has to be free, because it has to be accessible to people in situations like me. I spent the next year researching and developing methods of funding it without charging for the game, which led to the virtual affiliate mall, crowdfunding, merch, etc.
Early January 2018 I received an invite to Emerald City Comic Con to be a guest speaker along with a few other modders from Space Engineers. On 29 January 2018 I received official confirmation we’re going, which I interpreted as an awesome birthday present! We decided to talk about the benefits of video game modding on individuals, communities and developers. We received guest speaker passes, Marek Rosa from Keen Software House sponsored us, and despite my poor health I went all 4 days.
Despite the pain, suffering, health risks, I’m glad I went, it boosted my morale and gave me the confirmation I needed to fully invest my time and energy into Project Universe. The panel room was full beyond fire-safety capacity to the point people were denied re-entry if they stepped out by ECCC staff. With people of all types in the audience it showed me I was making the right choice. You can watch the hour long panel on my YouTube channel.
Being a modder, knowing the joy it brings me, how it’s helped me, and helped all those I’ve met, I designed the game around supporting the community. What started as a plan for powerful tools and tutorials for modders, evolved into the integrated school that’s part of the plan today.
On 29 January 2019 I invited all of Humanity to aid in development regardless of experience via a GoFundMe campaign. Since then many have come and gone, all of which have helped improve the plan in some way. In October we received a $30,000 donation which paid for registering Shaostoul Social Purpose Corporation as our official business, for the setup I use today allowing me to use my computer in bed, hardware and software for volunteers and compensated a couple of the most dedicated volunteer contributors.
In 2020 things slowed to a crawl as the quarantine forced many volunteers to stop contributing as they used public computers. Fortunately we were just barely able to complete a very early tech demo as part of our Unity for Humanity submission.
2021 wise things are looking better as early gameplay will be available later this year. How fast it develops depends entirely on you, volunteer Unity developers, public advocacy, community support, crowdfunding, investors, etc.
Hopefully you understand what Project Universe means to me, how it helps me live my best life by helping you live your best life. Dedicating my life to the betterment of Humanity has been the best choice I’ve ever made, I hope I inspire you to do the same. Before us is a massive cake, too big for any one of us to eat, but this cake doesn’t increase in size, so by getting more people involved, the cake is easily eaten by our shared efforts. How big of a piece you want is up to you, I ask that you at least take a bite.
For more information about Project Universe, to join the community, or find me on social media, head over to Shaostoul.com
There are 4 primary ways you can contribute to the betterment of Humanity via Project Universe including, but not limited to:
Joining the community, all you have to do is subscribe to this YouTube channel and follow me on social media. You’re not required to join our Discord, only developers are. Links to all official accounts are always available on Shaostoul.com/Contact. I manage all the social media accounts at this time; I post updates to all of them; You’re always free to message me, I respond as soon as possible.
Advocating Project Universe is the best way everyone can help as it grows the community. All you have to remember is Shaostoul.com as it has most information presented in brief videos similar to this one. Advocating while livestreaming is simple, just place a link in your bio, a small logo or text in your stream, then talk about it in stream randomly while playing video games or doing whatever it is you do. You’re essentially a community representative, we want your feedback and that of your community’s, ensuring Project Universe is the best it can be.
Developing Project Universe’s virtual platform is the best way of acquiring funding prior to gaining significant community support. The better our early development build is, the more likely investors, sponsors, venture capitalists will invest. This is why the first people I’m hiring are those voluntarily contributing to development. Every developer is required to join our Discord for the sake of efficiently coordinating our efforts.
We’re primarily looking for dedicated Unity3D developers, C# programmers, 2D artists, 3D artists, sound effect artists, UI designers, UX developers, and level designers. Some types of developers aren’t currently necessary, but will be later, such as musicians, voice actors and testers. As soon as you join our Discord and introduce yourself, current lead developers and I will work with you to figure out what you can work on. You don’t have to be a professional game developer with a bunch of experience, you can learn while contributing to development, several of us are self-taught as indie devs or from modding games.
Donating is the easiest way of contributing, all I ask for is $1/month, if you want to donate more, you’re entirely welcome to. Currently we use Patreon.com/Shaostoul for crowdfunding, but we’re exploring multiple methods for accessibility and exposure. For every $2,500/month we’re able to hire another contributor!
Everyone voluntarily contributing to Project Universe in a significant dedicated capacity is to be hired. First I’m hiring a core team of developers, starting with active volunteers, then I’ll begin hiring non-developers. To know how much funding we have at the moment go to Patreon.com/Shaostoul. Eventually a funding tracker will be added to Shaostoul.com, likely after the account system is safe, secure and functional.
The way we live our lives is drastically changing over the coming years due to the development of civilization advancing technology such as artificial intelligence, interplanetary space travel, and robotics. Our best hope of living our best lives is permanently solving the problems we face today, starting with the creation of the tools that make it possible. Many individuals, communities, and businesses are doing what they can, our mission is to work with all of you. Let’s prepare for our interplanetary future together.
To learn more about Project Universe go to Shaostoul.com