Available for purchase on Stargaze Marketplace
The good news: The best and brightest minds of humanity have shed their physical forms in order to meet up in a glorious digital eternity.
The bad news: You’re not one of them.
After The Filter tells the story of the remnants of humanity left behind after the singularity.
This collection of ten thousand, unique, hand-drawn, randomized, and AI-free characters represent the lost souls who couldn’t get their shit together in time to upload their consciousness. Certified survivors with negligible survival skills wandering a planet that’s suddenly way, way bigger now that there’s no, like, planes or buses or anything, and the next huggable human is four hundred miles away.
The story will unfold over time, and every character — protagonists, baddies, expendables, lovers, and thugs — will be drawn from the collection.
Who knows? The lonely little being you mint today could become a prime mover in the world of tomorrow.
What is After the Filter?
It's a serialized story, unfolding across multiple media formats, that chronicles the last days of the world's biggest fuck-ups — something we can all relate to. The story begins on the day after the bulk of humanity ditches their “skinhusks” to live forever in a digital paradise. Overnight, Earth’s population dwindles to around, um, 10,000? Hard to give an exact number with all the bots wandering around in rotting skinsuits. The upshot: these sorry, disorganized losers who could never manage to get their shit together are all that’s left of corporeal humanity.
And every single one of them is represented as a hand-drawn NFT.
Tell me about the art.
There are 24 different body types, each with their own unique traits. From tiny children to burly dudes. Every detail has been hand drawn.
The art is constructed in a way that builds on the tech used to create Bad Kids, this time with twice as many art layers. There is an enormous amount of variety and detail, yet each piece unmistakably belongs to this collection.
No AI tools have been used for any of the artwork. They are 100% human-made, the result of hundreds of hours of drawing over the course of a year.
What's the story about?
An event called the filter has left the earth mostly vacant. Everything’s pretty much up-for-grabs. Well, not everything. It’s not like the people who missed out on the filter suddenly turned into zen monks or whatever. You still have your paranoid homesteaders, fighting to hold on to what’s theirs. And the burnouts, wandering around in a daze, busking for turnips. Some are scared. Some are angry. Factions are forming. And a very small handful of survivors are trying to piece together what really happened on that fateful day…
This story might resonate with those who are still building and playing in the crypto space during the latest bear market. We're being told that all the people who knew better left. We're not sure about the future. Is this the end?
How does the story interact with the art?
Every character that appears in the story will be selected from one of the NFTs in the collection. Sometimes the character will be a community member, and sometimes it will be random.
In addition to the artwork, the metadata for each NFT includes additional stats that are not unlike a D&D character sheet. These stats impact every character’s thoughts and actions in the story world. Not every NFT will show up in the storyline, but those that do will act in ways that line up with their base stats.
What if my character never appears in the story?
Again, with such a large number of characters, obviously not every single one will be woven into the story.
But each character belongs to a faction, each with its own beliefs and customs. Even if your particular character doesn't appear in the story, you’ll see how other members of your faction interact with the world and those around them, and this will help you to imagine your own character's fate.
And who knows? The sadsack shitheel you mint today could one day rise up and single-handedly save the whole ding dang planet. Again, honestly? Probably not gonna happen. But maybe…
Is the story content only available to holders?
No. In the same way that most NFTs are visible to all, we don't want to exclude anyone. We want to craft a compelling story that spreads beyond Cosmos, and we want anyone who is interested to be able to enjoy it.
What's the utility of your NFT?
Holders will be able to vote on story elements for the next chapter. These votes won't determine huge things, like exactly what's going to happen next in the story. It might not always be obvious how your choice will impact the story until the next chapter arrives. While we have some specific ideas about the direction of the story, we purposefully haven't written an ending. This is part of the fun of a serialized story.
We want community feedback and participation, but we don't believe in design by committee; the best stories have an author who makes decisions. Sometimes those decisions will make you uncomfortable, and that's a good thing. The best stories challenge us, and reveal things over time that make us look back on earlier parts with a new understanding.
On Discord, we have a special channel to discuss the ongoing story with other members of the community. And occasionally us too.
But the biggest utility is showing that you support ambitious new creative projects on Stargaze and in the Cosmos ecosystem. Cosmos already has some of the best tech, but we believe an equally big driver in adoption is cultural relevance.
People want to go where the culture is being made. We want to make Stargaze a destination.
That's not actually utility, you're supposed to have tokens and virtual land and stuff.
Lots of other teams can do that, and they do it well. We're focused on what we can do best: strong artwork with a unique technical construction that pushes the boundaries of what's possible in an NFT, paired with a completely original story that unfolds over time. We don't think there's anything else like this, and that gives it a unique value.
Is there a roadmap?
Yeah. We can tell you that there will be somewhere in the vicinity of 12 - 15 main chapters to the story, with a number of offshoots and tangents along the way. We’ve got it all mapped out, but we don’t want to say too much about where the story’s going. Nobody loves a spoiler, right?
Each chapter will drop when it's ready. Some might be long. Some might be short. Some might be videos. Others might be comics, or short stories, or infomercials.
When relevant, new artwork will be created to illustrate new chapters and airdropped to the main characters of that chapter.
Who are you?
We are a team of three people.
@cortlandt is the creator of Bad Kids. He's a digital artist and designer, formerly in the games industry. He is serving as creative director, tech artist, and interpreter of all things Cosmos and NFT-related.
Steven Kimura is the illustrator. He's an interdisciplinary artist and entrepreneur, clothing designer, and retired/reformed art director for the games industry whose credits include numerous games in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series.
Matthew Derby is the writer. His credits include the scripted podcasts Harley Quinn: Sound Mind, Phreaks, and Sandra; the feature film Gone in the Night; The Silent History — a digital novel designed and written for iOS devices; and the short story collection Super Flat Times. He has served as an editor at The Believer and as a designer at Harmonix/Epic Games.
Why Cosmos?
Where else would you launch a story about ideologically driven factions fighting for control of a barren hellscape?
How many are there and how much does it cost?
The collection size is 10K. Check the Stargaze Marketplace for current pricing and availability. Because it’s on Stargaze, the gas fee is $0.
How do I buy it?
Right here: After The Filter on Stargaze.
To keep up to date on the latest developments, follow @afterthefilter on Twitter.
