Same Place, Different Universe Chapter 5, WIP 2; From being previously mentioned, to her first story appearance is Clarkia (macOS 10.12 Sierra and 10.13 High Sierra)! She tends to go by her middle name of Sierra. Her first name is named after the clarkia xantiana, one of the flowers native to the Sierra Nevada area.

She was previously mentioned in Kiah's article as her rival. I wasn't sure then if I'd get to introducing her in this chapter, but I found a way! Her design combines the color schemes of Sierra's and High Sierra's default wallpapers since it felt too limiting to just use the color scheme of the High Sierra wallpaper.

Sierra contrasts with Kiah by being more talented as a combatant and has a tough but prim personality, but she dislikes being accused of coasting by on her talents so she also takes the rivalry with Kiah seriously. However, she isn’t always as serious as she tries to appear.

This entry covers a couple of the most recent updates. The first version of the article about the mysterious ghost data has been published, which is a detail that was first mentioned in chapter 13 of IWASD:

Ghost Data

The article for Ximena has also been published; Her overworld image shows her design as an OS, which is similar to her Version 2 design. There's a lot I'll still need to finalize as I think over more details as shown by the sheer number of things listed in the "Details Not Finalized" template. I'm confident in the concept of her being a crafter of custom gear, a shop owner that joined The Awks when she became an OS but also founded her own team.

Her decision to form her own team could reflect disagreements that she had with The Awks, yet she might've tried to keep a dual membership (at first...) since Xenix was the most widely sold UNIX version in the 1980's. However, her success reaching the public wouldn't have necessarily made this easier. Dual membership between her teams would be *a lot* to keep up, and more so during the second half of the 80's...

The work that Ximena did when she was active in her original teams was vaguely defined in Version 2. I wish I was more clear then, but in Version 3 it's now more clearly defined and better reflects what I intended for her character.

Ximena Dawson

See also these updates coming together in one illustration:

I published this WIP on the 10th on Mastodon but forgot to also post it here and on the blog.

Same Place, Different Universe Chapter 5 WIP 1

Marcia looked towards Antares while both of them continued walking. "Regina was already in on this, but I should let you in on it too as a new member of TIMES because you guessed correctly. I went to another universe." She began to explain. They carefully looked around to be sure no one else was close enough to hear them.

"How did you do that?" Antares asked, with a noticeable hint of astonishment.

"I'll show you later, but for now, let's take a look at this." Marcia brought out a small clear bag from a pocket in her jacket. A cassette tape was in it. The label on the bag read "Cassette tape. Untested. Contamination risk: low".

"I didn't suffer any ill effects when I picked it up and held it." She put it back in her pocket.

"The risks of suffering that you take for knowledge, for Techlandia..." Antares remarked with concern and a hint of snark.

"Oh, I suffered alright. Mostly from boredom. Most of my recon was from hiding out and not being able to see much."

"Did you get to test the theory about time being relative?"

"I certainly did." Marcia said in an almost agonized tone. "I overheard conversations and took a lot of notes about them. Time felt so quick then, and in the opportunities I had to actually see the people talking. It felt too quick."

"But the time you spent hiding out?"

"So slooooooow!" Marcia groaned. "I had a device with me to disable security cameras from recording in its range to look around, but I spotted someone-- someone loud patrolling the area since there was someone who noticed that the camera was disabled."

They continued exchanging deadpan remarks as they walked through the hall and approached the front door.

Chapter 13 of I Was a Software Developer... is published. I updated the story section above and moved the listing for chapter 12 to the Archives page.

This chapter introduces more worldbuilding details that will be added to the wiki. It was an ambitious chapter with 4 illustrations instead of the 3 that I intended, and this chapter marks the first appearance of an OS from Techlandia before she became an OS. It's also the first chapter to mention a holiday from the Human World; Halloween could've caught on in Techlandia but adapted.

During the timeframe of this story, knowledge about the Human World was still considerably limited since few humans that arrived in Techlandia stayed.

I published a cleaned-up sketch of Olympia which will be used in one of the illustrations for chapter 13 of I Was a Software Developer... and it's been added to the side bar.

Out of the Programmable Darling Patrol members, she hasn’t had as much focus as most of them so far, and her only illustration in the story was from chapter 7 when she was introduced.

She might be reclusive to people outside of her team and whoever else she works with since she’s based on a PDP model that had one of the shortest production runs (from 1969-1972). This would also contrast her with the highly extraverted members of her team (I.e: Piper, Piroska). To the people who get to know her well, she’s very friendly and a helpful teacher.

The draft of this chapter is almost finished, and I started vectoring each of the sketches for it.

When I drafted the post about Kiah, it led to me taking more notes about worldbuilding related to what priority combat skills have on OS teams. How much of a priority it is varies by team, and even time period. It can be shaped by the conditions of the team's sector; the teams that place a high priority on combat skills tend to be in sectors with the most frequent malware problems.

The Orchard didn't use to prioritize combat skills so much; it was a low or medium priority but became high with the emergence of the Flashback trojan in 2011 because Mac malware increased since then. This would've also affected Chariots of Colors since its OSes become judged in their sector more for their combat abilities than they used to be in a long time and it was definitely a jarring change to its OSes. It was the most for those that may not have been combatants before.

I thought about this topic because when Kiah debuted, she was widely liked for her charisma, style and presentation skills (Yosemite's design changes were usually well-received), but she wasn't a very good combatant against malware. That hindered her reputation until she got better at it and fueled her rivalry with her next teammate. If she debuted a decade earlier though, she wouldn’t have been judged for that as much.

With this increase in priority comes challenges for OSes in trying to balance these skills along with their non-combat skills along with their free time. At least when OSes fight malware, they don't have to go it alone in this continuity. In Version 1 and 2, they did because the skillset classification didn't exist in them.

In fact, for an OS to fight malware alone might be discouraged as being reckless in Version 3. There's a lot of support that could come from a sector's own combatant guilds, and a team's supporters within them. This is more realistic in trying to retain OSes in a team (so if they leave, it's less likely from despair) and retain morale. It can also justify why there aren't malware threats OSes fight every day even in the highest-risk sectors. I'd also like to focus on the civilian side of the OSes' lives.

I updated some articles on the project wiki with these details:

• Operating Superstar (skillset)
• Teams

The articles for each of the characters that appeared in chapter 4 of Same Place, Different Universe have been updated, and the first version of Kiah's article has been published:

Kiah Nieves-Broderick

The trivia section in her article mentions her rivalry with the character representing Sierra and High Sierra. Based on how Yosemite was reported to have a lot of problems with usability, but El Capitan is much more polished, I see her as an OS that started out as an underdog and one that some of her team's supporters saw as a liability, but she trained hard to gain her reputation for reliability.

Since Sierra didn't have as troubled reputation, the Sierra character would be more talented but be accused of coasting by on her talents when she doesn't. This is inspired by the "Underdog protagonist vs. a more talented rival" dynamic, and would be relevant in the timeframe SPDU takes place. If I don't show this in SPDU, I still want to write or draw something showing this...

The draft for chapter 13 of I Was a Software Developer... is almost finished; here is a WIP about the shop:

Both of them [Piroska and the shopkeeper] were standing around the cash register chatting with each other. The desk they were standing around had a white body and glossy black top with a yellow, blue and purple terrazzo pattern had a display section behind glass and there appeared to be some boxes and items on display. However, I looked more towards the other sections.

The large windows at the front of the store displayed a row of mannequins with outfits and pieces of armor. They stood alongside metal and glass sculptures. There was a sign in front that said "Custom-made gear! Inquire inside." which reminded me of why Piroska recommended this shop.

The cashier desk area was along the right side of the shop. Across the shop on the left side, there was an antique Victorian-style wooden couch with white cushions with an ornate wooden table. They were also in a similar style as the chair behind the cashier desk, which stood out from the simpler designs of the desk, the shelves and cash register but was similar to the table that was to the right of the desk.

I focused my attention among the shelves of merchandise along the left and back walls. Some of the shelves showed off larger pieces; along the back wall I saw a display of pieces of armor, boots and gloves. Along these walls were also racks of shirts, dresses and jackets. Above the rack was a shelf of hats, and below the rack was a shelf with stacks of trousers on top, and rows of boots and bags on the bottom.

Chapter 4 of Same Place, Different Universe has been published! This story overall has content warnings for some heavy subject matter, but this chapter doesn’t have those subject matters and is all silliness! It’s a breather before things will get more serious again.

Mi-ho performs as a stage magician, which is built off of a reference to how the demonstration of the original iPhone was held together with a lot of tricks to make sure it'd go perfectly. Terrell is her volunteer for this performance, but I think because of his personality, he’d often want to be the volunteer! He might be often enough that he and Mi-ho could be a stage magician duo.

Kiah appears in full-color after her introduction to this continuity through the first WIP of the chapter. This update moves chapter 3 off of the front page, but the description for it has been moved to the archives. Several articles on the wiki will be updated including for each of the characters that appeared in the chapter. Since the process of updating each article with the latest refinements is still on-going, those articles will be updated with them.

I also found, or remembered some more sources I thought were interesting and will add them in the updates.

The second WIP for Same Place, Different Universe chapter 4 has been posted with a 3D modeled background for one illustration and a character in another!

There's a worldbuilding detail in the illustration of Regina; the wand she is holding stems from the tradition that started with The Awks' founder to carry a pipe, which carries over to other OSes and teams influenced by them; Regina and the other characters representing Mac OS X/macOS versions have their own, each with their own customizations which contrasts with many of the early Awks members and other UNIX-based characters that are more in line with them. She customized hers to resemble a rocket as a reference to Launchpad's original icon.

I hadn't laid out what the recording and streaming room looked like in chapter 3 but this chapter will have an illustration that shows part of it. I think some wall decor could be added to the back wall or it could be an accent wall but I wonder if it’d look too crowded. In the model of the entire room, I also added a desk, monitors and some other things on the desk and lighting in the corners. Although I'm not sure if I'll even need to render them for an illustration, it was still helpful to model the layout.

The two character articles that were mentioned in the previous update have been published! Their actual introductions in this continuity were through To the Visitors..., but appeared elsewhere before it was publicly announced. Say hello to two former rivals (though they still have a friendly rivalry with each other) who competed during the era of hostility that emerged between their teams:

	Kyouko Unzai
	Pleiades Galano

Pleiades' (Macintosh System 7) and Kyouko's (Windows 95 + 98) articles delve a bit into the timeframe that corresponds to the 1990's when the rivalries between their teams got hostile; Defending Waits for Nobody became the most successful team, and Chariots of Colors was at risk of disbanding. After the hostilities cleared, OSes from these teams could easily work together and be friendly again, which To the Visitors... showed.

I tried to write these rivalries between their teams as being nuanced and these characters having their own motives that drove them. Before the hostilities emerged, OSes of CC and DWN had rivalries that weren't as serious as they might've appeared to be, and could also be friends so the emerging of hostilities would be sad for both teams; friends or at least cordial rivals turned against each other. I portray CC and DWN with rivalries that were usually less serious and without grudges, since Microsoft's rivalries with IBM and Novell were much more personal; even in the 90’s, Microsoft still developed Office for the Mac.

The pressure on both sides to succeed could've driven the hostilities to emerge, and so could have CC's desperation to turn around their fortunes after several efforts failed (and many people started to doubt if they’d be able to stay in operation).

This is still a tricky timeframe to write about and details were intentionally kept vague, but Pleiades' and Kyouko's ordeals shape their present characterizations. Pleiades' rebellious and outspoken tendencies could be from her rejecting being a people-pleaser, which she might've been during her failed collaborations.

The art movement that Kyouko popularized is a reference to Vaporwave having a lot of Windows 9x imagery, but sometimes Vaporwave aesthetics have featured early Mac imagery too...

Over the past few days, I updated several articles in the wiki with information from chapter 12 of IWASD, and I created the Archives page today to move the earliest updates from the front page to it to make room for new ones. With this update comes a WIP of an illustration for chapter 4 of Same Place, Different Universe which introduces Kiah (OS X 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Capitán) into the Version 3 continuity.

Kiah has a boisterous attitude but tries to be helpful and always wants to be active with something. At the time this story takes place, she is the one of the newest members of Chariots of Colors but has proven to be successful after a rough start (Yosemite had significant issues at launch, El Capitán was a refinement that fixed them) She might seem intimidating to some because OS X 10.11’s namesake being a rock formation that is very difficult to climb. Two of her hobbies are mountain climbing and hiking.

Two more character articles are also almost ready to be published and I hope I can finish them today or within the next few days.

Chapter 12 of I Was a Software Developer... has been published, and Valencia makes her public debut speech in it! Her speech in this chapter give more worldbuilding details; she explains the ability that defines the Operating Superstars as a skillset. Their skillset reflects the flexibility of computers for programming and their graphical capabilities for various purposes. The "hobbyist and art movements led by them [OSes]" alludes to the Microcomputer revolution, which at the time was still ongoing.

The name of the guild she was in before she joined the PrDP is also revealed; they're called the Flying Crimson Warriors as a reference to the phrase "Flying Colors" having nautical origins, and a shade of red being one of the colors on one of the DEC logos.

Several updates to the project wiki will be coming up with information from this chapter.

Yesterday I published a worldbuilding article for the project wiki:

Debuts

I created this article to be linked from the character infobox to explain the significance of a characters' debut timeframe and to list which cycle every featured character so far debuted, in the Techlandian Calendar.

The infoboxes in each of the character articles will update the Debut field to the cycle they debuted, and the real world date of what they represent being released will be moved to a separate field in the Technical section. I haven't updated them just yet because I'm still thinking over what further details I could add.

One of them I considered is splitting up the Affiliation field into separate Team and Club fields which'd help distinguish them in the infobox. I also considered adding a Relationships section with fields for a character's first mentor, predecessor (when applicable), successor (when applicable), friends and rivals.

Another section will be added in the Debut article about characters that represent unreleased hardware or operating systems.

The first WIP for chapter 13 of I Was a Software Developer... as part of a scene I spent the past few days modeling and adjusting materials.

This WIP features a semi-final design of a desk I modeled scratch and it has a section behind glass panels to display more items. It uses a stylized glass material that is opaque to the viewers since what I wanted to do by showing off crystals and containers of beads behind a translucent glass material.

I even modeled beads and containers and made materials for them when I decided to just use an opaque glass material in the display because this scene already took a lot of time 🥲 I also modeled the cash register to make one that fit an aesthetic style. However there were some rendering errors and one of them I spotted is with how the material for the register rendered and another was with one of the patterned cloths.

If I can't fix them in Blender since my computer has started to get pushed to its limits with these renders, I can manually correct the rendered images.

From the latest update I posted on Mastodon:

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.

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.

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.

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.