Introduction to the KotOS Universe

-Written by fffffplayer1, finder and Honourary Enchanter of KotOS... okay, not really an Enchanter
There is the possibility that you have found this Wiki and wish to learn about this Universe the Knights of the Olde Speech have created, but are hindered by the fact that you are not well informed about Lego Universe and KotOS History. While the chances are generally low on that, you could be my siblings after I finally showed you how to easily access these stories or a Star Wars fan that gor really sidetracked.
There are many components that make up the KotOS Universe. It is theoretically a Lego Universe story and it gradually has included more and more elements from the Knights' Kingdom theme. But these concepts only make up the background for a Universe that is wider than both and which has evolved to become something unique and very distinct. The actual story is based off of, or rather, inspired by the actual histories of the Knights of the Olde Speech, taken place in the Lego Message Boards (Rip in Peace).
So, now I'm going to explain the things that are necessary for you to well understand what's going on in the books we write.
== Lego Universe ==
Lego Universe was the first Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) ever made by Lego and it was the love for every Lego fan that knew it (Rest in RIP, Lego Univerce). For several reasons, many of us have felt it necessary to declare eternal love for the game and part of that love includes writing (excuse me the bragging) inspired stories based on it. One of those stories was the MMOS KotOS Series (MMOS is Massively Multiwriter Online Story and a joke on MMOG). While Perpetual Doom, the first book of the series, could only be considered an LU Spinoff, as its plot is completely irrelevant to the plot of LU, the experience of the books would be incomplete without the understanding of such details like what the Paradox Rogues are.
I could now begin to narrate the Lego Universe storyline. However, you know what? I'm not gonna do it. Instead, I'm going to let Sir Patrick Stewart do it. Because who else could do it better?
left|thumb|450x450px|Oh, the nostalgia!
Watched that? Good! Now, we can continue.
The three remaining explorers shown in the trailer, Dr. Overbuild, Duke Exeter and Hael Storm, together with the fourth explorer's (Baron Typhonus) apprentice, Vanda Darkflame founded the Nexus Force to defend the Universe from the new threat of the Maelstrom, a chaotic, destructive force, corrupting and infecting anything that's caught in its path. For instance, the image of an infected minifigure (the word minifigure often being used instead of person or human in LU stories), also known as a Stromling follows:
The Four Leaders of the Nexus Force each made a faction of their own within the collective Nexus Force. There is Assembly, the faction of construction specialists and critical thinkers, the Sentinels, a band of skillful fighters, who are in their element in the thick of a fight, the Venture League, Nexus Force explorers and adventurers and finally Paradox, the most mysterious faction of them all, dedicated to the study of Maelstrom, trying to turn its own power against it.
Meanwhile, you may be wondering what happened to Baron Typhonus. The official story has him become the Darkitect, leader of the Maelstrom. However, among the circles of LU storywriters, there are many of us who diverted from this particular plot point, believing Typhonus and the Darkitect to be different people. Stick around and you might find out what angle the KotOS Series assumes. Here's a picture of the Darkitect, by the way, if you're interested:
Also, this is a Mythran. You may have noticed them on the trailer. Not much is known about them in the canon storyline, but they are known to be a mysterious ancient race of benevolence, helping and protecting minifigurekind.
Of all these, remembering the existence of the Paradox Faction is the most important for the basic stories.
Also, before we continue with the other components, we should clear something about death and smashing. In Lego Universe, when your character was defeated, they got smashed and then rebuilt in a safe area. In the Lego Message Boards, the guidelines required that you didn't mention anyone dying. Instead, you could replace the word kill with smash and that was considered acceptable (because minifigures can be rebuilt, even though usually smashed is meant to just replace killed, meaning permanent smash). Reading through our stories though ,you will find that in some of our earlier works, characters are smashed and then rebuilt with no distinction from other times when they get smashed and not rebuilt (and I won't even get into what happened with Sir Sharpie).
== Knights' Kingdom II ==
Knights' Kingdom II was a medieval Lego theme focusing on the strifes in the land of Morcia between King Mattias (Matthias in the KOTOS Series, after a while) and his Knights and the traitor Vladek. I'm not going to say any more about this, because it's not required for understanding the plot. If you wish to know more, though, here's a link to the Knights' Kingdom II page in Brickipedia.
The KotOS Universe draws ideas from KK II and the latter was eventually almost completely absorbed by the former, but certain events and characters are seen through new perspectives, resulting from the KotOS Universe being bigger than the KK one.
== KotOS History ==
I am not going to repeat the story of the founding of KotOS. That already exists in a couple of pages in the wiki and is easily accessible in the main page of the wiki. What I'm going to address is the thedude crisis.
As happens with all kinds of communities of a certain scale, the Stories of Lego Universe forum quickly had its own popular figures. Talmid was one of those people who built a reputation of themselves. His story, the Stromling Trilogy/Saga was one of the most popular of its time. And as popular things always do, it attracted its own haters. A person named thedude7500 walked in one day, metaphorically speaking, and for whatever reasons he had, he decided to declare that 'this in notin to do wit lu' concerning the Stromling Trilogy. That resulted in some responses from Talmid and his fans we could call... insulted. As the events transpired, thedude rated Talmid's story 0/5, said not so nice things, wrote parody stories in which the Knights of the Olde Speech were presented as evil and died, made several duplicate accounts and rated 0/5 the story with each of them and generally did the things a typical Internet Troll does -and all that in bad grammar and spelling. Eventually, thedude and all his duplicates were banned, viewing individual story ratings became unavailable and balance was restored.
Rhoddwr Marwolaeth, co-written by Talmid and Thingguy was the first story to ever feature thedude in it. Between all the random things that happen in it, he appears, if not as the main villain, certainly as an antagonist. This probably was a partial inspiration for Perpetual Doom, a story that's about the confrontation between thedude the Grammarless and the Knights of the Olde Speech, protectors of Grammar, Friendship and all good things. So, under this light, the MMOS KotOS Series can be considered an epicalisation of the actual events concerning thedude.
I think I've covered the basics. If anyone thinks there's something to add, feel free to do so. If you are new here and reading this for the purposes it's meant to fulfil, remember that any additional questions you have you can always ask us.
One final thing, though. There are two ways to read the KotOS stories. There's the easy way and the funny/interesting way. There's a page in this wiki called Manuscripts and Stories which is very handy for navigating through this wiki's stories. However, if you wish to have the full experience, you can read the stories where they were first published in, the LMBs. Well, with they Boards closing, you can do that in the LMB archives. The difference does not lie in the stories themselves, but the comments in between the story parts. There are many things that one may enjoy to read written in between and it gives a better insight on the KotOS and chance of recognising references. That being said, you will first have to get to the archives and then skim through the topics searching for the story parts in oceans of unrelated comments. That's not for everyone. With that, I'm out. See ya all.
You can download the Talmid archive made of the LEGO Universe subforum (and a bunch of others) before it was removed here. Do note, though, that there's a lot more stories there than our own.
And here you can download the Classics archive made when the LMBs were shutting down. It also has an excess of topics, but there are some you won't find complete (or at all) in the other archive.
Category:History