Operating Superstars - Story Chapters Operating Superstars - Story Chapters A collection of the chapters published for stories in the Operating Superstars project.
More information about each of the stories and the project are on the wiki.
List of stories (sorted chronologically):
Synopsis: Damien Beasty was from the Human World and worked as a software developer for UNIX in the 1970's. One day on the job in 1977, he was given a mysterious tape reel for his work computer. Unknown to him, it was enchanted with a summoning program and warped him to Techlandia.
He arrived in The Ship Deck at the Programmable Darling Patrol's headquarters. Juna, a part time member of this team summoned him since she was looking for a candidate from the Human World to work with them and join her own emerging team.
To Damien, this world he arrived in felt strange yet familiar. Juna's philosophies based around minimalism also seemed very familiar to him.
Timeframe: October 1977
Synopsis: It seemed like another morning for Marcia, but she noticed some of the teammates she knew weren't at Chariots of Colors' headquarters, her room looks like what it did several years ago and it seem that her time in the limelight returned again.
She suspects time travel happened that wasn't of her own will, but also seems to be in denial. Yet she tries to make sense of what could've happened while she needs to get ready for an art event she has an exhibit at, again.
Timeframe: June 2010
| Chapter #: | Title: |
|---|---|
| 1 | There's Room for Both of Us To Worry About Our Events |
| 2 | ...I Had a Lot Going On In My Mind That I'd Forget Something |
Content Warning: This story contains portrayals, themes or discussions of working in cult environments including the experiences of characters who are trying to leave but struggle due to the mindset they internalized, mentions of characters who were ostracized or threatened with ostracization.
Synopsis: Marcia harnessed her time travel skills over a long period of time, and with the help of a friend, pushed beyond her limits to make her first ventures into another universe.
She arrived in the headquarters of her team's counterpart which looks sleek and glamorous, but past those first impressions she finds a very different experience. One of the ways it is similar though is with the increased vigilance against malware threats.
With no cover story to convincingly present herself as a guest and concerns over the potential consequences if she were known to be from another universe, she has to be undercover to find information about where she is and hope she does not get spotted or be assumed to be malware...
Timeframe: November 2017
| Chapter #: | Title: |
|---|---|
| 1 | As Long As I Don't Get Caught, I'll Stay Off of There |
| 2 | I Should've Just Brought the Recorder |
A story was completed during the development of Operating Superstars Version 2. It's no longer canon, but will still be mirrored here.
Synopsis: A one-shot story of a visitor arriving at the Computing Old-School Museum of Superstars headquarters and meeting several of its members. This was an introductory story published with the launch of Version 2.
Timeframe: 2023
| Chapter #: | Title: |
|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome to COSMOS Library! |
10 Jun 2025
Chapter 11 of I Was a Software Developer... is published and marks the first chapter of this story to not need to be ported over.
While I was drafting the scene that Multiplicia appeared in, I looked again into the history to figure out whether she would've been from The Ship Deck or The Bell Tower. I'm inclined to say she considers herself to be from both of them and spent her early years in both due to MIT's and Bell Labs' involvement in Project MAC which led to the development of MULTICS.
It also feels in-character of her to not give a singular answer, or not a straightforward one. In this chapter I also focused on the use of slang in certain situations to show something about some characters.
There are a few phrases Multiplicia said that are Midwestern slang. This reflects her trying to fit in with GISC, since she moved to The Forge to join them, and The Forge has influences from the US Midwest region because of where most of the companies that made up BUNCH were located. She might be used to the tough climates there since the sectors she moved from have them, but there's a lot she still would've needed to adjust to.
Damien and Piroska used 1960's slang later in the chapter for wordplay, but it also reflects that both of them are from the Human World. Piroska arrived in Techlandia in the late 1960's so some of her slang is frozen in that time period, but Damien also knew that slang and remembers a lot of it.
23 May 2025
Both parts to chapter 10 of I Was a Software Developer... have been added to this page and with this update, these chapters are all caught up!
20 May 2025
Mirrors to chapters 8 and 9 of I Was a Software Developer... were added and with them some minor changes. This was a lot easier than the rewrite of chapter 7! Just one long chapter split into two parts to go and I'll be caught up.
In chapter 8, references to combat training were replaced with basic training that every OS starts with. Chapter 9 originally introduced the basic skill of Techlandians being able to see their status screen, but since that was brought up as the first thing Damien learned in his training in the chapter 7 rewrite, a section of chapter 9 was tweaked to remove dialogue that became redundant.
The wiki article for this story will also be updated with these changes.
19 May 2025
I've been working on a major update to the wiki over the past week that's still in-progress and modeling a scene that will be in chapter 3 of Same Place, Different Universe. There were issues rendering that scene, but they may have been resolved now.
The one-shot chapter of Welcome to COSMOS Library! has been mirrored to this site. This was the easiest chapter to port since it's a one-shot only in the Version 2 continuity. Chapter 7 of I Was a Software Developer... has also been added and featues a substantial rewrite with a new section so Damien needed to start learning the basic ability that all OSes have before he starts his training as a Mage.
Previously, his training immediately started with a magic sparring match, but it made more sense to move that further back due to the worldbuilding and continuity details that changed.
I didn't want to completely rewrite it so I found ways to work around details that I already wrote. When Damien cast the first sparks, Juna told him "You're eager for Mage training, but don't go to step 2 when you haven't done step 1." This was Juna telling him the equivalent of "You can't run before you learn to crawl".
When Valencia boasted to Damien "Ready to fight, newbie?!", that line was changed to "Will you be looking forward to challenging me, newbie?!" to better reflect the changes in this chapter, and that even if Damien weren't training to be a combatant, Valencia still would've wanted to challenge him to something; even public speaking when she usually hates that.
12 May 2025
Chapters 1 and 2 of Same Place, Different Universe have been added to the page. There were a few tweaks since when these chapters were written, the names for the organizations in Fragments Reloaded hadn't been decided on. When Marcia referred to an incident in chapter 1, she referred to its timeframe in the Techlandian calendar which has also been adjusted.
11 May 2025
The two chapters of System Time Reset have been added to the page. No major changes needed to be made when mirroring them.
I put the chapter 7 and 8 rewrites of IWASD on hold for a bit to continue my draft of chapter 3 for Same Place, Different Universe since that was another story I put on hold ^^;
7 May 2025
The first 6 chapters of I Was a Software Developer... were added to this page. There were some tweaks that needed to be made to fit worldbuilding and continuity changes. Chapter 7 and 8 are also in-progress but a large section of chapter 7 will be rewritten to show the first steps of the training process for a new OS that aren't combat skills.
The montage of Damien's magic training in chapter 7 may need to be moved back to chapter 8, or even an upcoming chapter after Valencia's debut party, which may be chapter 12 or 13
.