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Project Cygnus – A PFP Project That Was Inspired By NASA’s Voyager Golden Records

The Project Cygnus Interview

Could you please introduce Project Cygnus?

Project Cygnus is a profile picture project coming to the Tezos blockchain that has was sparked by the Voyager Golden Records by NASA.

The project uses real-life facts about the cosmos and earth’s space ventures with the art being created by a talented South African artist.

Is this a PFP project, or is there more to it?Although Project Cygnus appears to only be a PFP project it is much more than that. The PFPs provide the main utility and experience.

We aim to progress the story of Project Cygnus through developing the narrative, implementing the exchange your Advena (character) utility stage later this year and to create a future Cygnus currency where you will be able to generate this token using your Advena.

What makes this project stand out or different from a lot of PFPs we have seen in the past?

Project Cygnus really takes a new approach to profile picture projects. The artist comes from a design background and she can state that this project involved evaluating design theories and elements to curate the Advena avatars.

Lots of research has also gone into the project to create a unique style that references a retro-futuristic look. Additionally, rather than just creating characters we also finely crafted a brand, Project Cygnus. We also took a long time to create attributes that are not common to the human eye.

Since the Advena avatars exist thousands of light-years from Earth, the features of the Advena had to be created from another perspective.

Why the name Project Cygnus, what does it mean?

When I discovered the Golden record project and got set onto this tangent of creating Project Cygnus I wanted to come up with a name that was not just random but one that had a good meaning. This led me to investigate the possible locations where I wanted these avatars to live.

This led me to the constellation Cygnus where Keplar 452b exists in real life. I decided to call it Project Cygnus as it gave the project more of a legitimate-sounding name which you would expect to hear from a legitimate space exploration company.

Is there a whitelist?

Yes, there is a whitelist. We filled up the first 500 spots simply by verifying collectors in the chat as we understand that people do not have hours every day to stay active to earn a spot.

We announced that after the initial 500 spots are filled that it would not be so easy to get a spot in the future.

However, now the 500 spots are filled if you would like to whitelist then you will have to win it in a giveaway or engage in the chat.

What is the storyline?

The story starts with the golden record which triggered the whole idea for Project Cygnus.

The golden record is a real-life record designed by NASA. It was launched from Earth inside the two voyager crafts back in the 1970s.

Each voyager rocket carried a golden record that depicted the whole of humanity into one golden disk. On the disk are instructions to decode it if it were ever to be found by another civilization.

The decoded information will show any advanced civilization where Earth is approximately located in space and the rough time in light-years it is to other known galaxies.

Back in the 1970’s the government covered up as many alien sightings following the Roswell incident in the 1940s.

It makes you think why this Golden record was included in the voyager crafts, they knew something no one else did. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record…

Recently, one of the voyager’s crafts was intercepted by an advanced alien species called the “Advena”, a collective name for this advanced civilization.

The Advena decoded the encrypted information from the record and located the whereabouts of Earth (version: Milkyway) The Advena visited Earth from a distance and were met with mostly death, destruction, greed, and power-hungry leaders.

They concluded that human civilization would cease to exist in less than 1000 years. Either Earth’s fossil fuels would be depleted and the ozone layer would eventually crumble thus wiping out all of humanity or humanity would continue to wage war on each other causing a nuclear fallout.

Therefore, the Advena has offered salvation for the human race in the amount of 2000 people only. Using their advanced technology, they will capture the human consciousness and transport it to their home planet, Kepler-452b where synthetic bodies will be made to house a human consciousness.

Is there a game planned?

There is no gamification planned for now

You can replace your character for another one? Can you go into detail here?

This brings in the utility stage where each collector will have the option to exchange their Advena (character) to a new civilization within the Advena. This will be able to be done through burning their existing Advena (Tek-gen or Photonic).

When they burn they will be assigned a new egg and the reveal of their new Advena will be 24 hours later after the end of the burn event.

The rarity of their current Advena will not carry over into the new one. They will be randomly assigned a new Advena of random rarity. (If they have a rare Tek-gen/ Photonic then who knows what could happen to the rarity of their new Advena).

Could you introduce the team members, where you are based and how you know each other?

Creative director:

Utility head and mod:

Artists:

Developer:

Myself (mark), @NoremacSan and @awica_zip are all from South Africa and reside in Cape Town. We are a group of friends in real life too. Codecrafting is our project developer from the States.

We do not know him personally, but brought him into the team because of his previous work in the tezos pfp scene.

Do you have any past examples of the artists work?

The artist, @awica_zip works professionally in the design and illustration industry however this is her debut on the nft scene. Her twitter does not contain any real life work/ projects as she would like to keep this private, however it will feature work from Project Cygnus.

Why did you choose Tezos for this project?

@markivlaww and @NoremacSan have been collectors in the Tezos scene for a while starting with Tezzardz and Prjktneon.

We both became so immersed into the Tezos space and we also believe in the future of the Tezos blockchain so it was almost second nature to create Project Cygnus on Tezos.

We also support the clean nft feature of Tezos as it is inline with our view of having a cleaner environment.

How is Project Cygnus created (graphic tools etc) Are you working with any other Tezos teams?

The Advena have been created by @awica_zip and each attribute and layer is digitally hand-drawn. She drew each section in photoshop and then transferred everything into after effects to carry out the animations.

We are not working with any teams just us 4.

Are you funded at this point, or is it a self-funded project?

It is a self funded project.

Is this an NFT project, gaming project or both? Does it involve any DeFi?

Project Cygnus is an NFT project where we want the art to provide the main use and satisfaction to the collectors.

Are there any staking mechanisms planned

There is a brief idea in the works which would be implemented at a later date after the initial launch. It would include being able to stake your Advena’s to receive a reward in the form of Tezos.

Are there similar projects on other chains that you can describe Project Cygnus as being close to?We have not come across other similar projects in terms of the style of the art no. We really put a lot of effort in to bring a new kind of style to the Tezos pfp scene.

Any plans for Metaverse?

 Not as of yet but we are open to suggestions in the future.

Launch dates/Roadmap?

Presale: 21st April 8pm GMT (tomorrow)Public sale: 22nd April 8pm GMTMinting site is https://projectcygnus.xyz (in bio)

Reveal: will begin 24hours after public sale has started ie: 23rd April

Minting site is: https://projectcygnus.xyz

 On mint: Each collector will receive a temporary ‘egg’ that holds a randomly generated Advena

 On reveal: You will either get a Tek-gen which will amount to 1400 of the total Advena or a Photonic which will amount to 600 of the total Advena. This will be randomly decided on mint. 

Midway through 2022: This will be the utility phase. On planet Keplar-452b which is the home of the Advena , exists another sub-population that shall remain undisclosed for now. 

Utility event/ burn phase: Each collector will have the option to collect a character from this new sub-population by burning their existing Advena. 

-The catch, the only way to obtain this Advena from the new sub-population will be to burn your 

  existing Advena (Tek-gen or Photonic). 

-When you burn you will be assigned a new egg and the reveal of your new Advena will be 24 hours later. 

-The rarity of your current Advena will not carry over into the new one. You will be randomly assigned a new Advena of random rarity. 

( if you have a rare Tek-gen/ Photonic then who knows what could happen to the rarity of your new Advena)

What are the next steps for the project?

Firstly, is the launch date. We also want to let the community know that the team will be working as hard as they can to maintain a good floor price for the collectors after the mint.

We will collaborate with other projects and use connections we have formed to keep Project Cygnus exciting and up to date with the latest trends in the Tezos and NFt space.

What’s the best way for people to get in touch and interact?We are keeping the community engaged in the discord with games, art competitions, and challenges where they can earn rewards.

We also have suggestion channels and questions channels where we try to answer any queries from the community.

Any final thoughts you would like to add?

We truly believe in our Project. After being collectors in the space for over a year we believe that this past experience will help guide Project Cygnus in its future direction.

We also aim to take the community’s interest at heart for the future progression of the Project.

Also events we are hosting for the community;

1) Art competition on our Twitter : To submit tribute art

2) Gartic game in discord during the evening times for South Africa

3) Cygnus themed/ easter egg quiz nights

The last two events have been super fun recently, the community can earn prizes too if they win.

Any Sneak Peeks?