The Ultima Storyline in UO

[ToasterThief]

The one aspect of the Ultima series that I never followed was the UO storyline. I know its origin, which was a reflection within a shard, but that's about it. I never played the online game.

Those who have, could they summarize the "official" storyline? Or is there one at all? I hear "Blackthorn's revenge" but know nothing of what that means.

[Darkfist Dragon]

Original storyline:
The Stranger smashes the power gem of Mondain, each fragment or shard holds a perfect likeliness of the world Sosaria.. Those Shards are where UO is played.
The UO Shards are more "what if" scenarios.
As the Stranger cannot access (or maybe even dont know) about those shards, Minax still lives. Lord Blackthorn created his own group, the Chaos guilds, opposed by Lord Brit's Order guilds. New Lands where discovered: Lost Land and finally Illshenar.
Blackthorn allied with Exodus, and a race named Juka who come from Illshenar's Past. As Exodus is a machine-demon-whatever Blackthorn and his group where altered.
Lord British leaves the land (or simply vanishes, we all what happened) and Dupre takes over more or less, but he is a Knight, not a politican.
With the Juka's came the Meer from Illshenars past, a cat-humanoid race who are ancient enemies of the Juka.
Thats about it.
Ye can look at www.uo.com there should be more informations about the History of Ultima Online.

[Skutarth]

After all that time Origin was making a cool story-line through the games (with the exception of Ultima 8,) and they go screw it up!

[John C]

They did screw up ,but it dosnt matter since it dosnt realy have anything to do with THE real story

[Skutarth]

Didn't you join the Ultima Dragon's shard yet? It's based on previous Ultimas.
Cool, hehehe.

[Hacki Dragon]

In the real Ultimas, the Gem was smashed into 3 shards, which gave birth to the Shadowlords in U5. In UO, the Gem was smashed into thousands of smaller shards.
Yup, it's screwed up.

[Tim]

No, it's not screwed up. The tiny shards became the alternate Sosarias. The three largest shards gave birth to the Shadowlords.

Doesn't it say that somewhere in the Docs for U5? Not the alternate Sosaria part, but the 3 largest shards?

[Hacki Dragon]

The Docs for U5 don't say anything about the Shards, because you are supposed to find this out in the game.

This is the relevant dialogue transscript from U5:
Sutek:
"I have been scrying for the nature of the three Shards! I have learned they were formed at the time of the first Dark Lord. When Mondain's Gem of Immortality was destroyed, its shards still harbored unspeakable evil!They lay festering deep within the earth, but now their malevolent power has been unleashed will the world. The Shards and the Shadowlords can and must be destroyed!"

As you can see, the dialogue does not imply the existence of other shards.

[wjp]

Why wouldn't it be possible for other shards to exist? These 3 may have been the only ones that continued to exist in the "main" Britannia, but for all we know thousands or millions more created parallel worlds and stopped existing in the Britannia that U5 took place in.

[Clock Nova]

Stop. You're giving me a headache.

[Hacki Dragon]

>>Why wouldn't it be possible for other shards to exist?

If other shards existed, then Sutek would have mentioned them. The entire storyline of UO is based on an inaccuracy, and that's already enough to make it the last "Ultima" game I'd ever consider canonical, not to mention the atrocities in the latest add-on, which I despise so much that I won't even call its name.

[wjp]

You're assuming Sutek is omniscient.

Sure, the story is slightly far-fetched, but I don't think it actually contradicts U5.

[John C]

No,UO is just SCREWD UP,and,like U9,ignores the rest of the series.

[Colourless]

UO's shard explination was so it could ignore the rest of the series without screwing them up.

The explination is simple. When the gem shattered, each shard created a duplicate Sosaria that was isolated from the rest. Who would actually know about this though? As far as everyone person living in each 'shard' is concerned, there is only 1 Sosaria/Britannia, theirs.

-Colourless Dragon

[Darkfist Dragon]

And remember.. UO was not created to be part of the Ultima Saga.. I have to admit that it really moves much away from the originals.. But Ultima Online does sound better than "Online game based on the Ultima Idea".
I am a fan of the Ultima's. But I am also a Fan of Ultima Online (even of the much hated 3D version, which I prefer to the 2D)

[Dark Templar]

Hmm, you said Ultima Online shard based on the Ultima series? I would be extremerely grateful if someone would throw a link there.

OSI really pisses me off lately so I need some rest from this maybe

[Stephan]

You'll find Ultima Legacy at http://join.at/uduo although the page is a bit outdated and doesn't reflect the current state of the shard. Just keep in mind that Ultima Legacy is a pure roleplaying shard and no OSI "doodish" behavior is tolerated there.

[Paulon]

There's also an Ultima Legacy help site I maintain, with the current rules and a lot of background and joining information. I'm not sure if DH has updated the main site. http://www.ultimainfo.net/Legacy/index.htm