About Terran Shift

Terran Shift is primarily about the people; the story of mankind shifting off of their home planet of Terra into the universe. After a catastrophic event that concludes The Bio-Tech Era, people finally realize that remaining on just one planet could mean the end of our entire species. So, people begin to embrace space travel, and technologies that allow us to terraform new worlds to colonize.

The Project

The concept is to create a project that is open for anyone to join, if they are willing and capable of making a meaningful contribution to the project. The universe, its people, places, events, and general rules and technology will all be constructed by the members of the project. This is a collaborative effort to allow a safe haven for authors, game creators, musicians, and other artists to create media of any sort that conforms to the official canon described on this website.

There are many shared universes in existence. Most people should be familiar with shared science fiction universes like Star Wars and Star Trek. Most popular shared fantasy worlds are owned by Wizards of the Coast - Dragonlance, Planescape, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk to name a few. The difference is that these worlds are owned, either by a person or a company. You as an author can write a book that takes place in one of these worlds, but you cannot sell that book without explicit permission (and most likely paying appropriate licensing fees in the form of royalties).

The Goal

The eventual goal of this project is to construct a rich, living universe that anyone can create stories in. Many authors will be able to contribute to the timeline and overall feel of the universe. But this project differs in that the intention is not for the original creator or sponsoring company to profit from everything. It is not to exclude those who wish to contribute but can't afford the licensing or do not have the proper contacts. There will be no associated fan fiction for this universe. Anyone will be allowed to join and contribute their works to the universe, and then be allowed to sell their work without restrictions, without royalties, and without any explicit permission.

Now, as for actually joining the project and getting all the legality of these intentions ironed out, that remains to happen. At this time we are building the Core Canon and once we've talked this over with a lawyer, we'll go ahead and do what needs to be done (trademarking, copyrighting, and then most likely a Creative Commons license of some sort).

The Benefits

There are two obvious benefits to participating in a shared universe.

1. You are not responsible for creating everything. You can leverage the work and research of the other contributors and concentrate on your writings and on researching things in your area of expertise.
2. All of the works you create in this universe are instantly marketable to fans of the universe. Anyone who is familiar with the project will be interested in reading your novel, playing your game, or reviewing your artwork. It will be like the aforementioned universes, eventually... everyone runs to the theater to see the new Star Trek / Star Wars movie. When your work is completed, you can add major events to the timeline, or maybe just an entry to mark when your work takes place.

Now, all that being said, it's rather obvious that this site is not yet up to the task to handle an entire universe. There is a hidden wiki that is being used to construct the Core Canon, and it was always our intention to have a large, robust site capable of presenting an interactive timeline and a complete media list. These are enhancements that will be handled in the future, when the Core Canon becomes more mature. Stay tuned, subscribe to the news feed, and check back to watch the universe unfold.