--- ###### tags: `Gitcoin Graphic Novel` --- # Post-Sprint Decompression: RG<>GC Comic #3 Prepared for the GitcoinDAO Metaverse Coordinators Group ðŸ”ŪðŸĨ―🌈ðŸ‘ū *Let's put this information in relation to the first 2 comics.* #### Comic #1 - Didn't have much landscape/context - ETHbot vs Moloch for ownership of the world - No backstory of ETHbot, the individual bots, Moloch, etc. - Absolute good vs. absolute evil #### Comic #2 - A bit more complexity introduced, much needed - Introduced to the *Quadratic Lands:* futuristic, solarpunk, reflective utopian city overshadowing the dingy slums, a ghetto of black demons that attack the city/bots - Difficult issues here! High-modernist, classist, racist, etc., undertones: inside/outside (of the nationstate) juxtaposed with good/evil in the traditional war propaganda style - Bots are the tools for sustainable living (for the privleged) in service to the humans, but isn't it humans that cause the coordination failures? - *Who are the demons?* - What is the critical mass of the demon hoards combining into Moloch? Is there just one Moloch? - EthBots represent legos of the Web3 ecosystem: some core functionality at play here - EthBot and Moloch characters are both hyper masculine, pitting rage against rage in Marvel Universe fashion - The introduction of Anon offers some much needed complexity! - Ambiguous identity, anonymous, they/them - Gamer that bridges the futuristic aspirations of the young generation to crypto ideologies - Anon's GUI is the tool that coordinates global awareness towards Moloch, to send EthBot to the rescue. *The GUI is an important element/artifact!* - No backstory on the complexity of the corporate businessmen and factories causing the pollution - *Moloch wins!* Makes the audience sad, redirected to The Greatest LARP to engage with gamefied learning exercises that empower them to change the ending, instills them with agency = *shelling point for the hopeful* *Therefore...* #### Comic #3 - The 3 day design sprint generated information that will add **psychological complexity and depth to the characters** - The characters are not yet fully formed, but we have a pool of traits and narrative elements to draw from and they are coming soon! - We also generated info for adding **socio-cultural complexity to the landscape itself** - Plot = there is no plot 😂 In the vein of *Seinfeld* (TV show), Samuel Beckett (Theater of the Absurd), Alfred Jarry (Pere Ubu), Antonin Artaud (Theater of Cruelty) - "A comic about nothing" = no action, no clear good vs. a clear evil, **Moloch will not be represented as an image at all** until the very end - **The content of the story is the personal development of the characters and their maturation into a successfully coordinated team** - Allows the audience to build stronger attachment with the characters: emotional, psychological, philosophical - This is the purpose of LARPing: we identify ourselves with some aspect of the fictional character, feel ownership over their image, and take it on (borrow it) to superimpose over our own (cosplay) as an extension of our selves into the multiverse/metaverse - **The Quadratic Lands are an essential character of Gitcoin lore** that deserve to be more clearly articulated, given central focus - What is this version of the metaverse (and is that even the right word)? - Where does this story take place? Is it real, fantasy, virtual? Past, present, future? All of the above? - Doesn't require action to illustrate, more than just backdrop. *The landscape is the physical public good that supports the infrastructure of the digital public goods.* - *The earth is pure, humans are pure, Moloch is the source of chaos, pollution, catastrophe* is too reductive to be useful in inciting change in the audience. This narrative externalizes accountability. - We will unfold some more complex socio-economic, cultural, geo-political, etc., ideas by treating the landscape as a core piece of the lore - **All the characters will have backstories!** - Like any really solid sci-fi, it must be based in reality! Similair enough to be recognizable/relateable, but different enough to prognosticate realistic outcomes. - Correlated to real archetypes in the Web3-DAO community, from early Bitcoiners through the ICO boom up to the present and speculating on the future #### Comic #3 Plot (WIP) - Caste of characters who are all both protagonists and antagonists 😈😇 - They meet at a tavern, where they are all seeking their own individualistic objectives (Now-Me goals)ðŸŧ - An "NPC" tavern keeper serves them with a quest of fortune and glory. ðŸĪ‘ðŸĪĐ - Each character identifies some degen opportunity for their own benefit and agrees to set out together as a raid party to ensure the common goal of "number go up" âœŠðŸ―ðŸĪŒðŸ― - The raid party is an opportunity to explore the relationships between the characters; how they fit and how they cause tension, how pure intentions for one can be a threat to another = *no one right way, no singular truth, towards a multiverse of perspectives* ðŸĪšðŸ§Ž - The raid party does not encounter an explicit enemy (there is no action scene), but begin to bicker and argue amongst themselves. ðŸĪŽðŸ˜Ī - The tension pulls them apart. They pursue their own paths. 😎😭 - Each character is faced with their own aliennation, their perspective is distorted, NPCs tempt them, FUD demons torment them, they turn against each other. ðŸ‘―ðŸ‘đ - A dark shadow looms over the party as the delusional, neurotic, paranoiac, rivalrous tendencies consume our heros. The shadow self emerges. 🧟‍♂ïļðŸ§Ÿâ€â™€ïļ - The characters confront their shadow selves.ðŸŠžðŸ˜ą - A mystical ally NPC (introduced as a threat, but becomes a guide back to reality) alludes to the possibility of escaping the shadow if they can learn to coordinate with each other. "You already have everything you need" ðŸĶ‰ðŸ§™ðŸŋ - The characters look inwards, contribute something they have (skill, trinket, artifact) into the center, all fitting together to form an artifact = Captain Planet style, or how the individual EthBots assemble into a larger EthBot ðŸ§Đ🊄 - This new *tool* allows them to gain *vision and clarity:* they understand they must work together to survive and can see that some force (Moloch) has been occluding their purpose. 🔭🔎 - They also gain *mobility:* to pass between various dimensions to escape their own nightmarish delusions and witness that the shadowy force (Moloch) is breaking these connections. 🚊ðŸ”Ū - The end of the story is an expansion of scope, zooming away from the individual (Now-Me) towards the universal (Future-We). The image of Moloch is hinted at, a new enemy is identified, the old quest is abandoned for a greater purpose. *To be continued...* ðŸŒŦðŸ”ĨðŸ’ĨðŸĪŊ🎎 #### The 4th issue then has: - A more complex, multidimensional, metaversal world to explore - A dynamic caste of characters that can be expanded - Numerous inflection points in the characters, landscape, and artifacts that can be elaborated - From one Moloch to many Molochs: what do they look like? How do they operate? Moloch as an occult shapeshifter, a summoner and the evil that is summoned, a wielder of black magic that manipulates the will of the characters to suit his own ends, [*the Black Stack to come*](https://www.e-flux.com/journal/53/59883/the-black-stack/) (to put it in Benjamin Bratton's terms) - Any group (RaidGuild or otherwise) can pick up any of these elements, or build their own. *The universe is expanded* #### Considerations of The Universe Guide ##### Open-source Narrative - Using Web3-DAO tooling to structure how the contributions are made: we will provide an infrastructure for contributions so the community can write the story themselves - RaidGuild has some ideas on the technical front: - Github/Radicle repo - Integration with the Github community bounty system, already well established and wildly successful (correct?) - Voting system: quadratic voting, or proposals that go into a DAO of contributors? PR requests would be voted on for making changes to the cannonical lore. The Universe Guide tracks these changes. - We are preparing a more detailed overview and hope to collaborate with GDMC on setting this up! ##### Transmedia Bits - Characters, landscape, artifacts (and more?) can be iterated on by the community, rendered into many transmedia outlets through the same mechanisms - We will propose a starting point and structure as a prompt, but not provide *too much* detail so the community can take up the elaborations - The multidimensional, multi-perspectival, multiversal meta-verse will provide two important aspects: - Further articulating what exactly the metaverse is according to Gitcoin lore - Allowing multiple seemingly-incompatible perspectives to co-exist as different layers of a unified vision - **Artifacts!** There has to be portals, interfaces, tools, and other symbolic coordination systems in the story to allow for more human involvement. These are items in our metaverse and can be rendered as NFTs/tokens with varying qualities, ranging from utility, governance, token-gated content, etc. Also an incredible opportunity to expand upon the lore of NFTs themselves.