TORONTO — David Goyer, a credits filmmaker that includes the Blade Trilogy, The Dark Knight and the Apple TV Foundation series, said he is building a new blockchain-based science fiction universe called Eggence.
According to Goyer, the world of emergence features spacecraft, relic hunting and Whitehall. This is a science fiction staple that serves as the basis for a vast transmedia project that has built Goyer’s new blockchain platform, internal incense.
Goyer appeared alongside Sy Lee’s Sy Lee during a panel discussion at the Coindesk consensus conference in Toronto. So Goyer laid out the vision of the accusation, saying that fans would be able to co-create the emergent universe along with professional storytellers.
“The idea is that we’re going to involve the community in all of this and we have the opportunity to create characters who will join podcasts and participate in animation,” he said.
Goyer criticised Hollywood’s approach to IP construction, calling it “very top-down” and slowing adaptation. “The franchise is embedded in the film and television industry (on) models from a century ago,” he said. “It’s very difficult to innovate. If you’re a newcomer, it’s very difficult to break into Hollywood.” Web3 added that it will help change that.
Started in 2023, Store Protocol raised more than $80 million from supporters, including A16Z, hash and efforts. The platform provides tools for registering, tracking and monetizing intellectual property on blockchain.
“Each intellectual property has its own program, license and royalty sharing rights,” Lee explained Friday. “Without a middleman, someone can build on remix, licensing, and essentially someone else’s IP,” he added. “According to the rules set by the IP owner (…), they can share the benefits together.”
Goyer said he wrote a 2,500-page story Bible to anchor the emerging universe. “We hired a truly talented concept artist who was working on the Harry Potter and the Star Wars franchise, and we hired many of the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction authors to write stories into the universe using the Bible I created,” he said.
This material also served as training data for an AI agent called “Atlas.” Goyer said it will help contributors co-create within a pre-defined narrative framework.
“What I say is something like an authorized use of AI, and we’re not just cutting out information,” he said.
Visitors to the Emergence Platform can read about its characters and settings, or generate their own. Communities may promote user-generated stories and visuals. The editorial board, chaired by Goyer, will decide which submissions will become part of the official Canon.
“We let the community repeat the characters that the community has created themselves,” he said. “Then me and a few other editorial boards will decide which of these characters are best suited to the overall franchise.”
“AI, Web3, blockchain – none of this, it’s gone at all? The whole world is tokenized,” says Goyer. “So for me, I just thought this is something I need to learn and participate.”
AI and blockchain have heightened fears about unemployment and the commodification of creative labor, but Goyer said his hope is to use technology in ways that empower artists.
“It’s about sticking your head in the sand or sitting at the table and seeing if you can help guide this in your own little way, in a way that is beneficial to a creative type like me,” he said.