Operating Superstars project

Welcome to the Operating Superstars project!

Intro

This project is a take on the niche but popular concept of personifying computers and operating systems and is based in the MMO and computing history-inspired digital world of Techlandia.

The eponymous Operating Superstars (OSes) are one of the paths that inhabitants of this world can take; they have a lot of recognition but also challenges due to their roles: The positives and perils of publicity (counting competing for coolness to their communities), mounting of malware mishaps to be managed, troublesome technical tribulations... The list lengthens but the OSes are revved up in their resolve for the challenges ahead!

Much of the worldbuilding is revealed through a collection of short stories and webnovels as characters' adventures continue, but can also be introduced through drawings and Mastodon posts. Most of the information, including character and team articles will be on the project wiki.

These stories focus on different teams of OSes or individual characters across different time periods about their life in Techlandia, and sometimes of ventures into another universe... Chapters vary from slice of life to action, to investigating mysteries in the past, present or future that reveal more about the setting.

Setting

Techlandia is the world that this project takes place and is a conworld loosely inspired by computing history with areas that are usually loosely based on computing companies or organizations. Occasionally, humans have arrived here and the introductory story of this project stars one of those humans whom decided to stay.

The Sectors article on the wiki has an overview of each of the named sectors and the teams of OSes that they hosted.

Scope and tone

There's a growing cast that spans several teams and sectors representing many computer and OS line-ups. However there are limits to which companies, line-ups and specific characters that'll be featured for story reasons or for practical reasons to keep the development sustainable. See the disclaimers for more information.

The tone mixes comedy and drama, and can within the same story but tries to avoid mood whiplash within the same chapter. There's overall more of a focus on comedy, and some planned storylines will be serious but are not intended to be completely bleak. There's hope; characters representing hardware or OSes that are long obsolete continue to have relevance instead of being left behind and forgotten.

OSes have counterparts in the other universe explored in this project. It's a cyberpunk dystopia and "obsolete" characters struggle against being forgotten and it gets into more serious issues that warrant content warnings, but it's not going to be completely bleak. The tone is intended to focus on perseverance against the odds. Reading back and forth between them (when there are more stories for the latter) may be jarring, so reader beware!

Latest chapters

I Was a Software Developer Until I Got Taken to the Computer World of Techlandia!

An illustration of Piroska boasting. Off to the right is a panel of Damien looking terrified. Piroska is saying 'She wants to challenge you to public speaking!' and Damien is saying 'That doesn't sound like it'd be much easier...'

Chapter 11: Aww Yeah, It'll Be Unreal!

Valencia challenging Damien to public speaking for her rehearsal already sounds unreal (see chapter 10 or the sidebar now for how she feels about it), but Piroska is telling the truth about this challenge! Will Damien accept it?

Same Place, Different Universe

Marcia looking displeased while she holds a cassette tape she found.

Chapter 3: I'm Already an Intruder Now Also a Thief?

Marcia finds a tape that could have clues about her team's counterpart POMME, but she must muse about muddled morals...

Update log

31 Jul 2025

From the latest update I posted on Mastodon:

"I vectored and started shading each of the illustrations for chapter 12 of my webnovel I Was a Software Developer...."
Two out of three are nearly complete, and I hope I can get these finished and publish the chapter within the next few days! After this, several articles on the project wiki will also be updated with information from this chapter. I also want to look into adding another section to the home page that showcases the latest chapters of ongoing stories.

Soon after that, I started testing an updated layout that had an extra section to showcase the latest chapters and to move the update log to its own row! This'll give some time to show off the current chapters before the next ones get published.

29 Jul 2025

The first version of this homepage is live! I just made a few last minute tweaks to the CSS, moved To the Visitors... to its own page, and added some material to the sidebar.

28 Jul 2025

I spent today and yesterday re-learning how to make CSS grid layouts. That step was frustrating since I got too rusty with my knowledge about them since I last coded one. I got stuck on some of the details at first, but when I found a great tutorial to follow along with (and was more awake), they clicked together and I could put together the basic layout!

After that step, I've been working on the finer details such as putting together a header image for the top div and tweaking the CSS for it to get it to fit just right, and tweaking the dimensions of the sidebar and the design of the menu.

27 Jul 2025

Hello World! Look what I started throwing together, an actual home page for this project on Neocities! It's simple since most of the information is on the wiki, but it was about time I put together a home page here. I published it in May to publish a story that was meant to be an Easter egg to go along with the Stories page. That story is called To the Visitors that Wandered into the Construction Zone and has been moved to its own page. It also has an article on the wiki: To the Visitors...

Putting together this homepage was something I was wanting to do at some point in the near future. I started putting this together on the 27th and had a pragmatic reason for it: I wanted to publish another WIP on Mastodon that showed images, but the instance I use to publish updates had technical issues with uploading images that day.

This was a wake-up call that I should post updates in multiple platforms; there's also the Wordpress blog which has been *the* project site when it launched in 2023, but a webpage with nothing but HTML and CSS (there's no Javascript or anything else unless I have to use them for features I can't do with HTML and CSS alone) also fills a need for visitors with older computers or slower connections. I also have fun trying to make Old Web-style sites and customizing them, while learning how to modernize them.