Getting Started

We are a world-building and writing community centred around the titular Aoshtai Galaxy, a large spiral galaxy located in the heart of the Aegis Cluster after which our wiki gets its name. Aoshtai is a huge galaxy, and Aegis a yet-larger cluster; within it is mystery, adventure, and opportunity.

Over the course of billions of years, the Aoshtai Galaxy became home to thriving and dynamic civilisations. Nations, kingdoms, and empires rose and fell, until one race the Aoshanti, the Throneborne, united under a single ambitious ruler, conquered the galaxy, and gave it its name. This was not to last, however, as soon the great galaxy-spanning Aoshanti empire decayed away, its glory tarnished by corruption and inertia, before finally collapsing under the strain of aggressive extragalactic invaders, the Tesar.

In the modern age, the descendants of all these great players now fight amid the ashes of the giants of the legendary past, forging their own great myths and legends in the process. The Aoshanti successor states keep the legacy of their gilded past alive and hold desperately to past glories; the distant descendants of those first desperate Niibairu invaders attempt to build a new future from the destruction their ancestors wrought-- and caught in the middle are so many races, nations, and peoples whose destinies and ambitions lie elsewhere than the simple perpetuation of an eternal struggle between Aoshanti and Niibairu, and the historical cycle of the rise and fall of legendary empires of days gone past.

Where will you, the writer, stand amid all this? That is up to you to decide, and we will be happy to help!

## Making an Account

If you don't already have a Wikia account, making one is easy! In the upper right-hand corner one should see "Create an Account or Log In". Click it, and follow the instructions. If done correctly, you should have a brand new Wikia account, and be ready to edit.

## Making and Editing Articles

Creating new articles and editing new ones is just as easy. In terms of making a new article, go to the upper right hand corner and click on the piece of paper icon. This should prompt you to name your new article, and whether or not to use the standard Wikia page layout, or use a blank page. After that, you should be brought to one of two editor types, and you can type away. Once done, make sure to publish your new page!

To edit an existing page, simply click "EDIT" on the upper right-hand corner. This will bring you to the editor. Once you are done editing, you may publish your edit the same way you would publish a brand new page.

## Editors: Visual vs. Source

There are two different editors that can be used on Wikia.

The **Visual Editor** is the default and assisted way to edit your articles. It includes several buttons to help you format your article's contents. The Wikia staff have provided a Visual Editing Tutorial that you can reference while editing your articles.

The **Source Editor** is the more traditional and hands-on way to do one's editing. Formatting and other functions are all done manually, which while more complicated and advanced also allows for enhanced customisation options.

## Crediting Text

When adding something, particularly from off of the wiki, that you did not create yourself, *give proper credit!* Proper credit can come in different forms-- for short textual excerpts from real-life or offsite sources a simple citation may be all that is necessary. You can learn how to do citations quickly and easily here.

More substantial excerpts however, the size of a paragraph or larger, should be in quotes, and should be signed off with "Adapted from (xyz)" or similar.

The way this is done in the Source editor is to write "{{quote|content of text|origin of text}}".

In Visual Editor, meanwhile, simply click the drop-down button under "insert", click on "template", and look up "quote" in the given search bar and fill out the provided categories to your satisfaction.

Below is an example of a quoted excerpt of text;

> "*This book begins with three related premises: first, that there is a tacit logic of historical thought; second, that this logic can be raised to the level of awareness; and third, that historical thinking itself can be refined by its intelligent and purposeful application.*"
>
> **- Adapted from *Historian's Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought***
>
>

Keep in mind that while *text* that isn't yours must be credited and cited, *facts* do not. Common knowledge claims such as "The Battle of Hastings was in 1066" or "Oxygen is a gas" or *any* fact claims about the fictional universe don't need to be credited or cited. We're writing fiction, not doing a school paper!

## Images

The use of images in an article is a quick, fun, and easy way to spruce it up and make it more interesting for the reader. A powerful and well-placed image can often be more informative and impressive to a reader then even a large and well written block of text! For the experienced and discriminating editor, no article is complete without at least a couple.

### Uploading Images

Uploading images is simple. Outside of the editor, one may go to the upper right-hand corner to the drop-down interface (pictured below) and click "add new image".

Once that is done, this will take you to a new page which will prompt you to choose a file from your hard drive, and upload it. Keep in mind that there is a 10 MB limit on files!

Once the file is chosen, you may modify what its file name and summary (description) will be on the wiki. For information on an appropriate summary, see the below section.

Inside of the editor, the process is only slightly different. For both Source and Visual Editors, there exist buttons (on the right sidebar and the top sidebar respectively) for the selection of photos to insert into an article. One may also upload them from here too. The process is near identical to the above after one clicks "Choose File" and decides to upload.

### Crediting Images

Images which are not your property or creation must, like excerpts of text, be credited. To do so, credit in the summary the author, artist, or otherwise the originator of the image. If possible, provide some sort of link to the originator in the Summary. If you are the creator or owner of the image, it is highly recommended you still credit yourself. If the image is Creative Commons or otherwise owned by no one, say so.

### Displaying Images

Displaying images is simple. First, select the image button (on the right sidebar for Source, and top sidebar for Visual), select an existing image or upload a new one, and fill out the final "Appearance on Page" window.

Here you may add a caption, orient the photo on the page (right or left sides), and resize it. Alternatively, you may put an image on a page in its full resolution, but this is not recommended.

In the Visual Editor, captions and resolution may be edited after an image has been posted by double-clicking on it. In Source, an image, when on an article, will look like the below:

[[File:Example.png|thumb|left|Description]]

Where the first part is the file name, "thumb" indicates that it is a thumbnail, "left" indicates it is on the left side of the page (if the image shows up on the right side of the page there will be no such section), and "Description" is the caption.

## Tips from the Users

Below are personal tips and things to keep in mind from experienced users. Add yours!

### Infobox Image Tabs

    You might have seen some infoboxes with images have tabs at the top that let you switch between two or more images in the infobox. This is really easy to do. When you edit an infobox, where you would usually put just an image name such as image1.png, you set up multiple images within <gallery></gallery> like in this image to the right here. Note that if you put a | after the name of the image, you can put a brief description that will show up on the tab itself.

    Now when you apply your changes to the infobox, they may not show up in the editor, this is normal. Once you save your page, you'll be able to see the two tabs to the infobox.

    If done correctly, your infobox should look something like this. Note that the long name used for the tab has been cut off, so make sure to keep the name as short as you can, especially if you're using more than two tabs. Oh, and fair warning, when you try to edit the infobox again, it will initially only show the first line in the "Image" field, which should be <gallery> at this point. Once you start typing, the text box will expand to show the rest!

## Attribution

~Credit to The Moon Guard Wiki's "Getting Started" page for the general structure and some textual excerpts.