Let’s start back at the very beginning with some of the events leading up to the creation of Icarus Interstellar Incorporated. Back during the time of horse drawn carriages… okay, well, not quite that far back. Let’s start again…
The early beginnings of what would eventually become Icarus Interstellar Incorporated can be traced back to around 2005 or 2006. The exact times of events have been forgotten, but the impact of those events shaped the future. A much younger Skymaster, along with a group of friends and associates playing Star Wars Galaxies, created the Gray Order guild and built a city on the Wanderhome server. The guild grew to almost 100 members with over 50+ active players at times. The city became a metropolis that included a city center, spaceport area, manufacturing district, entertainment sector, and residential area. Adventures were plenty and times were great!
All of the members of the Gray Order had a love for science fiction and space adventure games, and there were many adventures and good times while playing SWG. The guild did a variety of events, including regular play, roleplay, crafting sessions, and social events. When roleplay was the focus, there were elaborate stories and and exciting events, many becoming fond memories for the group. The Gray Order remained active in SWG up to 2011, riding the many ups and downs of the game. However, the game closed in 2011, arguably as a result of years of poor management from Sony Online Entertainment, which caused much of the player base to leave.
The guild looked elsewhere for a replacement to dive into. The release of Star Wars The Old Republic, suspiciously soon after the close of SWG, opened up an opportunity for the guild. However, even though “advertised” as SWG’s successor, it was not even close. That was soon crossed off the list, although some players enjoyed it and kept playing for the “single-player story”. As the search continued, many other games were explored and played, but none of them caught on for the guild as the replacement for SWG.
Then, there was one of the moments that didn’t seem like much, but significantly impacted the future for Skymaster and the Gray Order.
In 2012, as the Gray Order guild continued to play a variety of games, a friend told Skymaster about a game, Star Citizen, that was early in development and looked very promising. Initially, Skymaster wasn’t interested after reading the early pitch. It sounded nice, but seemed like a glorified spaceship simulator with a few ships and without much ground content. Nevertheless, he put it on his radar.
As he continued to read articles and watch videos, he also noticed the game scope grow. Skymaster started to see the potential of this recently announced game. The more he read and watched, the more he became interested. In 2013, he purchased a package and became a citizen. His excitement grew and he eventually realized the huge potential of Star Citizen (thinking it would be released in a few years… yeah, a few years).
After talking to some of the active members of the Gray Order, which included both old and new, the inevitable happened in 2014. Skymaster spearheaded creating a new organization that would follow the development of Star Citizen and play the game when launched. He founded Icarus Interstellar Incorporated and became the organization leader. The new name reflected a shift away from the old guild to a new corporation-based organization. Thus, started the building block for an organization covering all game careers. Hopefully, the organization members thought, “the game would launch in a few years…”.
Well, the “hopefully, the game would launch in a few years” part was a bit off… well, make that way off. Despite the “delays”, Icarus Interstellar Incorporated remained active and continued to ride the ups and downs of the game development, but never gained much momentum on organizational planning. Too much was still unknown to plan much and it was difficult to find many that wanted to dedicate time to a “buggy game”. Regardless, the org played and had a lot of fun through the years. A decade later, the organization, while still playing other games here and there, was still waiting on the right moment to move planning for Star Citizen to the next level and start to realize some of our earlier visions.
Fast forward to present…
With the overwhelming success of CitizenCon in 2023 and the promise that the amazing technology and exciting new content that was presented will be introduced in 2024, the leadership realized that Icarus Interstellar Incorporated should start dreaming, planning, recruiting, and expanding. To the stars!
