Lore Liftoff: Web3 Gamers Embrace Alien Worlds’ Vision for Tokenized Lore
Last year, multi-chain metaverse Alien Worlds set out its vision for Tokenized Lore, an innovative model that would see the game’s players contribute to building out its sci-fi tapestry. As well as having the opportunity to submit stories set in the Alien Worlds universe, these submissions would be the subject of on-chain voting in a dedicated Lore DAO to determine which entered official canon.
Since launching earlier this year, Tokenized Lore has proven to be a major hit with numerous stories submitted for canonization and over 770 accounts participating in the decentralized voting process. An AI Discord bot trained on official Alien Worlds mythology – dubbed a Large Lore Model – has also answered thousands of prompts and generated over 2.5 million words of creative content.
A Flourishing Franchise
It should be noted that not all stories are advanced to the voting stage: first, submissions are thoroughly vetted by two community members, the appointed Lore ‘Scribe’ RED and Lore ‘Librarian’ Lalothen. These knowledgeable individuals assess stories based on their quality but also their conformity with the foundational lore laid down by celebrated sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson. Several dozen stories have already been assessed by the pair, with the finest being green-lit for voting. The community has voted nine into canon.
Naturally, participation in the lore process is incentivized with rewards dispensed to active contributors and grants made available for the best writers. The tokenized lore system is designed to ensure that both storytelling and voting is worth one’s while. Of course, there’s also the possibility that a canonized character or story could form the basis of a future Alien Worlds game, comic, tournament, or NFT collection.
The concept of a community-driven sci-fi franchise is certainly intriguing. Given the depth of feeling associated with this particular genre, who wouldn’t want to leverage the pulsing power of intense fandom to expand and enrich a story universe?
Leveraging blockchain for the purpose of decentralized narrative is a no-brainer, and Alien Worlds isn’t the only one doing so: Layer-1 blockchain platform Story empowers IP holders to tokenize, protect, share, and monetize their ideas. One project utilizing Story to expand a narrative – also in the sci-fi realm – is Emergence, conceived as “a galaxy shaped by mysterious forces where storytellers can explore limitless narratives, empowering both creators and audiences to play a role in shaping the canon together.”
In the case of Alien Worlds, where a pan-galactic Federation strives to extract a volatile energy source called Trilium from six different planets, each governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), approved stories have hewn close to the foundational lore while introducing fresh characters and ideas.
Lore DAO in Action
The first canonized story, Crucible of Sentience, follows a curious, Trilium-obsessed Robotron called R.3X as it wanders the universe, eventually joining forces with the secretive Splicers to replicate Trilium’s properties from different sources. Another approved story, Spiritualist Khaureds, follows a sect of creative Khaureds who “seek to be the exception to the regimented, soulless norms of their race in every way.” While a third, The Rise of the Stjerneblods, details a class of enhanced beings equipped with superhuman strength and accelerated healing.
What these contributions do is add meat to the bones of the foundational lore, expanding the repository of the official Large Lore Model, Lynx, so it can be used by others to inform their work.
In total, 22 stories have entered canon of 31 submitted since the Lore DAO’s launch in late January, with players utilizing over 1,360,000 of ‘Vote Power’ from an impressive 1.9 million accumulated (Trilium tokens are staked to the DAO to acquire VP). Around 100 stories are still in the process of being reviewed or sitting in the pipeline ready for submission.
Are we at ground zero of what will evolve to become the future of storytelling, where fresh perspectives proliferate and a wellspring of ideas erupts? Perhaps it depends on creators pushing their respective franchises in different and exciting directions, receiving ample rewards for their efforts, and seeing their work make a meaningful impact on the project as a whole.
Just as gamers created guilds to exert more influence in their virtual domain, it’s possible that crack teams of storytellers will form to collaborate on creative output, pump out better content, and split the rewards. Alliances are already central to Alien Worlds thanks to its decentralized governance model and inter-planetary competition for Trilium.
Operating at the intersection of blockchain, AI, gaming and storytelling, Tokenized Lore represents a fascinating proving ground for community-driven franchise building. No wonder stories are flooding in.
