Silicon Medley

Silicon Medley is a fanon/derivative universe of OS-tan created by Rizzonen around July 2020, predating UNIVER.SYS by 3 years.

Down With The Canon

Rizzonen, then SpacePuffer or Pufferworks, had been interested in the OS-tan phenomenon and the gijinka trend for years. However, they grew disillusioned over how the English-speaking OS-tan fandom codified a canon that determined how OS-tans should be portrayed, and how alternative takes weren't considered valid. Moreover, certain OS-tans were reduced to background roles or killed off in the narrative in accordance to real-life history and obsolescence, which Rizzonen considered a wasted opportunity.

Around late 2019 until 2020, Rizzonen also took interest in Silicon Valley history and the microcomputer boom in the 1970s. It was when they came up with the idea of a fanon that highlighted the OS-tans representing the early personal computers, instead of sidelining them. They named this universe Silicon Medley.

What It Had

This was the lineup of Silicon Medley. Some characters and design elements would be repurposed in the current UNIVER.SYS character cast.

Silicon Medley was set in alternate universe Earth, which was the more favored setting among English OS-tan fanon universes. The slice-of-life format later used in UNIVER.SYS had its foundations here, opting for more character explorations instead of focusing on magical battles or OS-tan superpowers. This was also when Rizzonen had the idea to form OS-tan groups based on camaraderie and shared values rather than bloodline.

But the biggest addition in Silicon Medley was perhaps, the Admins, human developers who lived alongside the OS-tans. In older settings, humans were often depicted as faceless users and developers, the latter tend to have significant control over the OS-tans' fates and their longevity in the limelight. Silicon Medley attempted to do it differently with the Admins, depicting them as having reciprocal relationships with the OS-tans, helping maintaining them. Some Admins were designed after real-life tech figures from Silicon Valley.

Why It Ended

Silicon Medley was an ambitious project to overturn the "canon" the previous shared universe made, perhaps too ambitious, but it eventually collapsed under its own weight. First, the development of the universe became convoluted due to the author's need to represent every facet of the microcomputer revolution, causing many characters to be underdeveloped or sidelined, which is ironic for a setting aiming to shed light to "forgotten" OS-tans.

Second, compromising Silicon Medley's lightheartedness with the cutthroat corporate environment of Silicon Valley eventually fell apart, resulting in Admins being unnecessarily "mean" and rivalries of OS-tans turning melodramatic without actual payoffs.

Finally, Rizzonen's own exhaustion and real-life issue caused progess to slow down and finally stopped.

Lessons Learned

After Silicon Medley's abandonment, Rizzonen learned that compromising with older, more "accepted" ideas like the English OS-tan universe, for the sake of preserving what was built before, didn't work as well as they thought, as many of them contradicted with their own personal visions.