What is the Ao Collective?
The Project
Introduction
We are a group of multimedia storytellers working together to bring Primary and the other Worlds of the Ao Collective to life. We explore each through the lives of its heroes and history-changers in a variety of genres, styles, and mediums. Our aim is to take a writing process that has been intrinsically collaborative and transform it into a socially-driven reading experience, with the hopes of building a community that will add to and influence our existing and future work.
Mission
To create stories that build upon, are inspired by, and intersect those of other Collective writers. To build worlds that are not static in time. To include diverse characters, settings, and ideas in respectful and sensitive manners, and create spaces for underrepresented voices to shine. To be an open and welcoming community, and work collaboratively, both in writing and editing to achieve a higher quality material than any one person is able to achieve alone. To motivate each other, and be the best authors we can be.
The Worlds
Primary (Space-Opera)
The far future descendants of earth, after it was destroyed, Primary is a ship traveling through space, searching for anyone else in the endless dark. They are kept alive by Ao, a small singularity that powers their ships and allows a fortunate few to connect to other worlds and shape them as Gods (or Holders). They have brought other worlds into their fold, but they have only begun to understand the cost of their power.
The Plane (Whimsical Fantasy)
Within the mysterious expanses of the Plane between Worlds, held together by the power of the Ao Singularity, lies a secret world. Within the Plane, anything is possible, including a whole civilization created with the remnants and discards the Holders made over the year, known as the Mountain Fell. In it, wild and whimsical creatures live, and magic suffuses all elements of life, the people unaware that they exist in a misunderstood pocket of space-time. The Plane is home to The Mountain Ring series.
Fortune (Science-Fantasy)
The first of the Ao Collective Worlds. Fortune was meant to be perfection. It is a string of equatorial archipelagos in a beautiful, vast, freshwater sea. The Holder of Fortune meant well, but in creating paradise, they forgot the laws of nature. Now fearsome storms rage across the vasts waters, and the people of Fortune suffer and die, lacking their most precious commodity: Salt. The Crystal Corporation controls all salt on Fortune, their seat of power the Spire, the only large source of Salt. Fortune is home of the NACL series.
Dracona (Epic Fantasy)
Eighteen were the Holders that founded Dracona, and their bickering has shaped their world. Two continents lie divided after a terrible war, Sitla, the victorious side, and Carinn, the land of Exile. Only it’s been so long that no one remembers that they once came from across the sea. Instead, Carinn is divided, kingdoms warring amongst themselves while trying to discover the secret of the Gifts, mysterious powers that even those fluent in the art of rifting do not understand. Dracona is home to The Last Gift series.