Collaborating

I have just started my first organised collaboration effort for the KU, which is significantly different from just managing players and their contributions.  Like all such efforts, this one was much larger than the initial idea foretold. I have tinkerd with the Clans for the Kapteyn Universe (KU) for a couple of years now and have been developing the master hostory and gathering together much of the information that I have haphazardly created over that time.  As I undertook this collection of data, I suddenly realised how much work there was.

Between the Canon mapping project, the KU Game and writing for the main KU story line, there was going to be precious little spare time for getting the Clans detailed, so an open collaboration looked the way to go.

Advertising for assistance netted me seven willing souls, but the important thing was going to be ensuring that all the current information was accurately assessed and used, and that each of the eight participating writers would all be working from the same data in the same way.

This organising of data became the critical step and involved three detailed sources for the collaborators: the Collaborators Guide; the excel sheets with the data; and the basic histories and other information I had put together.  Organising this information became a major task in and of itself.

The Guidelines contained the key to the other two documents, as well as a detailed timeline and series of steps that we would take to get from start to finish.  The Collaborators Guide provided the template we would all work to, with the collaborators all becoming familiar with the guide and the other material over the first week.

Once we get past week 1, we are into active development, with the Excel sheet providing much of the needed information. the ecxel information contains sheets for each Clan with all thee economic, industrial, trade and military data, as well as sheets summarising all sorts of additional details, like timelines, Bloodnames and the Combined Clan Fleet.

The history document, which will become the finished product, already stands at 175 pages, which should make this project one of the epic fan fiction creations once complete and filled out.  The document will contain a general history of the KU Clans, a discussion of the Clan society in the KU, general military organisation and then look at each of the twenty Clans.

Each Clan will have its own history filled out, with a list of all its Khans and saKhans.  Information on Politics and Society will accompany short bios of the Khan and saKhan.  Details on each Clan’s economics and industry will also have a breakdown of territory and population, showing the relative economic strengths of each Clan.  Finally, the militaries of each Clan will be detailed, showing what Clusters are in each Galaxy and what WarShips each Clan possess.

So, as you can see, this little idea for help in completing a project has blown out into its own rather major saga.  I seem to have a penchant for this kind of extravagance.  However, as the weeks role by, I will post part sof out work to keep the interest up and let you all know how we are progressing.